


Forgotten how to stand

by beckaandzac (becka)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Football, Injury Recovery, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-11 23:16:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/becka/pseuds/beckaandzac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall is a Chelsea midfielder recovering from major knee surgery. With luck, he should be back and better than ever next season, but for the summer he's basically housebound, and in the back of his mind he knows he might never play again. To liven up the monotony, he seeks out the services of Louis, a high-class hooker who's happy to make house calls. And although Niall's been with professionals in the past, he couldn't have expected the feelings he has for Louis, how quickly being with Louis starts to feel like being with a friend. Or more than a friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forgotten how to stand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [balefully](https://archiveofourown.org/users/balefully/gifts).



> Written for [One Direction Big Bang 2014](http://1d-bigbang.livejournal.com/). You can find a fabulous illustration by [asnakehabitat](http://asnakehabitat.tumblr.com/) [here](http://asnakehabitat.tumblr.com/post/76314869254/my-art-for-the-1d-big-bang-i-drew-a-scene-from)! Thank you so much, Jewelia!
> 
> Deepest gratitude to [Em](http://archiveofourown.org/users/randominity) for reading this and cheerleading and letting me WHINE CONSTANTLY, and to [Sam](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lazy_daze) for britpicking. <33
> 
> This fic started as a birthday present for [Lucy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/balefully), and she was gracious enough to let me put it off until big bang. I really hope you like it, bb. <33

Niall opens the door to a man in an expensive raincoat and a pair of soaked-through loafers. He’s shockingly pretty, more so than Niall would have expected, even given the pictures. His eyes are very blue against the grey of the day outside, and the sudden bloom of his smile seems genuine. But then Niall has done this often enough now that he knows not to believe in any smile too much, no matter how lovely. “Hi,” he says, leaning forward a bit on his crutches. “Are you Louis? I’m Niall. Come in! It’s much drier in here, I reckon.”

“It’s much drier at the bottom of the sea too, most likely,” replies Louis, and his voice gives him away as the bloke on the phone. He’s casual, easy, and Niall remembers the first time he paid for sex, from a man so much more sophisticated than he was, groomed and polished within an inch of his life. He pays for quality, but quality doesn’t have to mean posh. Louis’s wearing Burberry, but his voice is Yorkshire, and there’s a fine layer of stubble at the edge of his jaw that Niall would like to feel on his inner thighs.

“Are you all right?” Niall says, holding out his hand to shake. “Want a brew or something to warm up?”

Louis’s hands are small, as pretty as the rest of him, slim fingers curling around Niall’s palm as he holds on for a long moment. “That’d be great,” says Louis. “Just show me the kettle and I’ll do it myself.”

Niall rolls his eyes. “I’ve got a dodgy knee, mate. I’m not an invalid.”

Louis gives a significant look at the crutches and raises his eyebrows. “Not sure what invalid means then. If you can’t get some small favours off having a new knee, what the hell is the point of any of this then?”

“Hoping the new knee works better than the old one, honestly. That’s the point, isn’t it?”

Louis shrugs. “Fair enough. Still ought to tell me where your kettle is. I’m very particular about me tea.”

“In the kitchen,” says Niall. “Like anybody’s.” Niall insists on helping him out of his soggy raincoat, juggling it between one arm and a crutch to get it on a hook. Louis doesn’t say a word about it, and it makes Niall feel a little less raw, a little less like he needs everything from everyone else. He hasn’t had much company since the surgery, apart from the woman who comes round once a day to tidy up, and his assistant who likes to check that he’s got all his appointments straight. Niall’s had to relearn his own house, settle into the downstairs bedroom for the duration, but he likes doing it without help as much as he can.

Louis turns a small circle in the entryway before deciding on a likely direction for the kitchen, and Niall follows him through. Louis from the rear is almost better than Louis from the front, generous bum held in tight by his grey trousers, the curve of his back highlighted by the damp patch at the back of his shirt. He wavers a bit, glances at Niall who nods him straight through the kitchen door. The house is bigger than he needs, but he likes it, likes having the space to invite all his family and his mates from home. And after years of tiny practical flats near the club, he feels this is well deserved.

“Want a brew as well?” Louis asks, filling the kettle. “Then we can discuss exactly what I’m here for like civilised people.”

“Go on then,” says Niall. “Best china’s in the cupboard there if you want to do it properly. No finger sandwiches though, sorry to say.”

“That’s a right shame, but we can make do.” The kettle bubbles up and clicks itself off rapidly, and Louis looks impressed in a way he hasn’t done over anything else in the house. Niall has to like his priorities. “How do you take it?” Louis asks, finding the tea tin like he’s already at home and dropping two bags into mugs from the dish drying rack.

“Just milk,” says Niall, leaning against the island and watching Louis unravel his kitchen.

“Good man,” Louis says, setting out the milk. “Shame to ruin tea with sugar.”

“’Ruin’ is a bit strong, isn’t it?” says Niall mildly, just for the face Louis pulls.

“No. It’s not too strong at all.” He fishes out the teabags and drops them in the bin. Once he’s splashed in some milk and put the bottle back in the fridge, he hooks dainty fingers through the handles of both mugs and takes them to the big kitchen table. “Do you need to put your leg up or anything?”

“Should do, yeah.” Niall says, settling awkwardly into a chair. Louis offers his strong thigh for Niall to rest his foot on, and Niall swings his stiff leg into position, Louis giving his instep an absent squeeze before turning to his tea.

Niall’s hired a fair few professionals in his day, but this is the first time he’s done it at home, and he likes the way Louis slots right in, no awkwardness. He closes his eyes over his tea, fringe drooping wetly, and he looks sweet in that moment, touchable. Then he looks up again, mischief in the corners of his smile, and that’s even better. “So you’ve got me for three hours. Since you paid up front, you can really do whatever you like in that time. There are a few things I won’t do, but we don’t have to talk about them unless you’re inclined that way.”

Niall considers. He’s had a couple of days to think about the curves of Louis’s body in his pictures, imagine himself with his mouth and hands all over that smooth tanned skin. “You have any specialities?”

“Chef’s special on Wednesdays is a rump roast, but I’m not fussed about much except proper tea, to be honest. I’ll like what you like.” He looks like he genuinely means that, but Niall knows it’s also part of the transaction.

“That is a very fine rump,” Niall admits.

“I do my best,” Louis replies. He wraps his free hand around Niall’s ankle. “How careful do we need to be of this?”

“Can’t put any weight on it really. Think I’ll have to let you do most of the work.”

Louis finishes off his tea in one long gulp, and Niall watches the working line of his throat. “Don’t mind that at all. Lots of things I can do with you on your back. Or right here at this table if you’re into that.”

Niall smiles over his tea. “Bet there are. But I think I’d rather go traditional today. In a bed and everything.”

“Then drink up and we’ll be off. Unless you’d like me to go warm up the bed for you in advance.”

“Nah,” says Niall. “Let me just show you where we’re going.” The process of getting up is more complicated than he’d like it to be, but Louis helps by holding up Niall’s crutches for him to slip his arms into. “Bedroom’s just through there. Not as fancy as the one upstairs, but it does all right.”

Niall sits on the edge of the bed to help Louis undress, working each button of his shirt out of its hole, revealing tanned skin and a smattering of light brown hair. Louis’s belly is charmingly soft, and the give of it under Niall’s hands, supported by strong, supple muscle, is gorgeous. Niall wants to kiss him everywhere, so he starts off, nudging his lips against the span of Louis’s ribs as Louis leans into him. His hands skim up the back of Louis’s thighs, finally get a grip on his luscious arse. “Think you could sit on my face?” Niall asks, looking up. Arse like that on a bloke would be a shame to waste.

Louis frowns thoughtfully. “Did a bit of prep work, so it’s probably tasting of silicone just now. I could wash though, if you like.”

Niall squeezes at the meat of his arse, spreading his cheeks a little between his hands. He’s got three hours to spend, he could handle a bit of delay. “Bathroom’s through there. Help yourself.” He watches Louis’s tight trousers walk away in the direction of the bathroom, watches the slight hypnotic sway of his hips and can’t help but feel out the shape of his own dick beneath his sweats.

Louis comes back naked a few minutes later, beautifully tanned from top to toe, half-hard and stroking himself gently as he approaches the bed. “Think I’m a bit more ready for you now,” Louis tells him, stepping close.

Niall finds that Louis’s dick is now staring him right in the face, and he can’t help but lean in for a little taste, rolling his tongue around the head of Louis’s cock and smelling his own soap on Louis’s skin. Louis thumbs over Niall’s cheekbone as Niall sucks his dick a little deeper, opens wider on the length of it and tastes it further back on his tongue. He forgot what it was like to be hungry like this, in the mist of painkillers and long, uneasy naps that immediately followed his surgery. But he’s sure as fuck remembering now, practically drooling on Louis’s cock, swallowing down every last hint of flavour, savouring the heaviness of it on his tongue. He gathers Louis in by his generous arse, cupping the lovely round of it, fingertips slipping down and in as he slurps at Louis’s dick.

Niall can’t help leaning into the hand that slides through his hair, Louis’s fingertips tickling over his scalp. “This is grand, love,” Louis says softly. “Want me to come in your mouth?”

Niall pulls off, licking the swollen edges of his lips. “And after I can eat you out?”

“You certainly can.” He guides Niall back to his dick, lets him set his own rhythm for a few moments longer before Niall realizes Louis needs more focused suction, that Niall’s mouth tightening on the shaft of his dick makes his knees tremble. It’s the most honest kind of transaction, this, the subtle bargaining of Louis’s tugging fingers in his hair, Niall’s tongue tracing the edge of Louis’s foreskin. Niall loves this part, piecing together someone else’s likes and dislikes. It’s one of the reasons he rarely goes back for a repeat performance; it’s usually more fun to figure out what someone new needs.

Louis gives a promising little grunt as Niall rolls his balls experimentally, and Niall lets his hands run a wide range, down Louis’s sturdy thighs and back up again, over the hot skin of his taint, back to his arsehole, still a bit damp, a bit slick and too easy for the finger Niall slides straight up him. Every part of Louis’s body responds to that, cock jumping and arsehole squeezing on Niall’s knuckle. Niall’s so ready to get his mouth in there as well, feel that tight clench on the tip of his tongue.

Louis makes a small noise, and his hips jump as Niall laps at his slit, thickening precome filling Niall’s mouth. “Gonna come now, love,” Louis says, and he sounds almost lazy about it, although he moans gratefully as Niall swallows around him and he starts to shoot. Niall swallows down each thick burst of come, working his tongue around greedily for more, lapping up every last drop like he’s been starved for it, and maybe he has been, a bit, out of commission and seeing no one but his assistant and his physio when they come round.

Niall closes his eyes and leans his head on Louis’s belly, breathing hard, as Louis strokes his hair, fingers gentle and sure. “Needed it, didn’t you?” Louis asks, and Niall nods against his bare skin. He rubs his tongue against the roof of his mouth, remembering the shape of Louis’s cock. “All right? Gave your tongue a bit of a workout already?”

Niall lies out on his back on the bed, lets Louis kneel over him to get at his arse. He looks first, admiring the curve of it, the slope down from Louis’s lower back, the fullness of his hips and the muscles of his thighs pulling taut as he sinks to his knees. “What did you do to get an arse like this?” Niall asks, smoothing his hand up over Louis’s crack again, thumbing into the split.

“Power of prayer, mate,” says Louis, and Niall can’t resist giving him a swift smack, watching the red spread and then fade off the curve, making Louis gasp and then laugh aloud.

Niall kisses the smooth skin of his arse, each cheek and then right in the middle, before spreading Louis’s cheeks and burrowing into his crack. Louis murmurs and wriggles as Niall licks into him, and he may have just come, but he’s obviously into it, the way his body moves against Niall’s mouth. Niall squeezes the cheeks of his arse, spreads him wider and feels him tremble. He tastes of sweat and soap and a plasticky undertone of lube, and Niall tonguefucks him deep immediately. It’s pure instinct to grab for Louis’s hips when Louis starts shaking as though he might fall, and Niall wonders if Louis does this often, or if this is actually a shock for him, if his arsehole doesn’t usually get treated as well. Niall loves the way Louis gives for his tongue, the way he opens under the pressure, and the slick spasm of muscle as Niall presses in deeper, gives him more.

Louis balances himself with a hand on Niall’s hip, sinking down lower on his knees, pushing himself towards Niall’s mouth. Niall’s dick is stiff against his belly, dripping, and Louis dips down to kiss the tip. Niall gasps, has to dig his fingers into Louis’s arse as new wave of arousal pulses through him. He doesn’t even know where the condom comes from, just that Louis suddenly has it in his hand and open in a crinkle of plastic. His grip on Niall’s dick is steady and sure as he rolls it down, and Niall keeps licking at him, fucking Louis’s gorgeous arse with his tongue before he gets his cock inside it.

“Ready for the next step, love?” Louis asks, and Niall slides his hands over Louis’s thighs, comes round to Louis’s hardening cock and strokes up the length of it. 

He presses a last kiss to the lower curve of Louis’s arse and says, “Could you turn around for me? Want to see your face.”

Louis doesn’t tease, sinks down on Niall’s cock in one slow, rocking motion, his mouth open wetly, his cheeks pink. He looks like he was made for this, folding into Niall’s lap, easing himself back onto Niall’s dick. “That all right?” Louis says, pushing his hair off his face. “Good for your knee?”

“Practically like physio,” agrees Niall, and he settles his hands on Louis’s hips, holding him there. He’s tight and slick with spit and leftover lube, and he lifts up easily before settling down again, seating himself on Niall’s cock. Niall rocks his head against the pillow for a moment, savouring the feeling before he says, “You’ll have to do the work.”

“With pleasure.” The straining of Louis’s thighs as he lifts up is beautiful, the way he grips tight on Niall’s cock as he pulls nearly off before sliding back down, driving Niall’s cock even deeper in. Niall groans, and Louis angles a smile at him. “Like that? Slow like that?”

“Yeah,” says Niall. “That’s just right.” He puts a hand over the flexing span of Louis’s thigh, feeling the steady strength in it as Louis pumps himself up and down on Niall’s cock. There’s a solidity to Louis’s body that contrasts his size, the fluid way he moves. Niall bets Louis would be able to hold him down if he asked for that, if he ever wanted to just give everything up for a while. But today this is perfect, the steady rise and the agonizing descent of Louis in his lap, Louis’s stiff cock bobbing between them as he fucks himself slowly and thoroughly. He watches Louis lose himself for a moment and then come back, smiling benevolently down, and there’s still something more real in it than Niall usually expects from someone he’s paying.

Niall touches his cock, holds it in a loose grip as Louis works himself up and down, watches the slide of Louis’s foreskin, the little bubble of precome at the tip. He can feel every hitch of Louis’s breath, every stutter of his hips as he strokes more intently. “Are you gonna come for me?” Niall asks, rubbing his thumb through the thickening fluid at the head of Louis’s cock.

“Would you rather go first?” Louis replies, but it’s breathless and short, like he might not be able to stop himself, and Niall likes that, the same way he likes the flush creeping up Louis’s cheeks, the soft parting of his mouth. He wanks Louis faster, feels him bear down and try to hold back, and Niall’s so close anyway that he’s shaking a bit, and it’s lovely, in the end, to not be sure which of them comes first. They’re both panting and unsteady and spent in a matter of moments.

It’s a rush and a blur, and when Louis climbs off him to chuck the condom, Niall stretches as much as he can, feeling a slight twinge in his knee and realizing he’d forgotten all about it whilst Louis was riding him. And that was the point, wasn’t it? A distraction. He lies pliant for the wet flannel Louis runs down his chest, shuts his eyes until he feels Louis settle at his side again, comfortable, like they could do this easily and often. And they may yet. “I’ve never had anyone over to mine before,” says Niall thoughtfully.

“Reckon you mean a prostitute, not just, like, houseguests. Because you don’t seem the type to let this lovely home stay empty.”

“Yeah. It’s always been an on the road thing. I’d ask my assistant to find somebody for after the match, just so I could wind down. But that’s not like asking someone into your home.”

“No,” agrees Louis. He props himself on one elbow to look Niall in the face. “I solemnly swear I won’t steal your best silver.”

“Glad of that then. I wouldn’t ask you back if you did.”

“Nor would I expect you to. You’ve got an hour left of my time now, love. Is there anything else you need?”

Niall looks at Louis’s mouth and asks, “Can I kiss you?” He doesn’t attach much meaning to this, not like he had in the beginning, when every kiss felt like some kind of subversion, but he still likes it.

Louis leans in, and their mouths find each other easily. Niall tips his chin up and closes his eyes, and the softness of Louis’s lips makes him smile. They pull apart just to come back together in a deeper kiss, and Niall opens his mouth for Louis’s tongue, lets it move slickly over his. Louis kisses well and thoroughly, and Niall curls closer to him, spent and lazy but still hungry for this. It’s different to wanting sex, but he’s more curious for the easy alignment of their mouths now, the soft way they fit together as Louis slides a hand into Niall’s hair. He rubs a hand down Louis’s side and Louis shivers away for a moment. “Ticklish,” he explains, and kisses Niall again, doesn’t mind when Niall’s hand presses between his shoulder blades instead.

When Niall pulls away again, he’s short of breath and Louis’s grinning, thumbing one of Niall’s pink cheeks. “You’re lovely,” says Louis, and it’s as essentially meaningless as any other praise from someone you’re paying to fuck you, but it’s also sweet, and Niall doesn’t think Louis would have bothered to say it if he didn’t mean it. He could get used to this sort of afternoon round the house.

“Do you take regular clients?” Niall asks. He’s never had cause to ask before. When he’s in a city for one night, it doesn’t really matter if the bloke he takes home is one he’ll want to see again.

“Absolutely,” says Louis. “With pleasure.” He sounds like a proper businessman now, putting together a deal. “Are the afternoons all right for you? It’s a bit less busy in my line of work.”

Niall imagines himself as the first person of the day to fuck Louis, imagines him going out after, sinking onto another man’s cock, but loose from Niall’s already. “My diary’s pretty empty at the moment, mate.”

“Let me break up the monotony for you then. We can discuss a regular rate, get you all settled up. How often would you want to see my lovely face?”

Niall looks at him, the careless curve of his naked hip, the way his hair tufts up in the back. “Weekly, I reckon. If that’s all right. I’ve got the money.”

Louis breaks into a grin. “I’ve seen your house, mate. And your matches. I think I can tell you’ve got the cash.” It’s the first indication Louis’s given that he even knows what Niall does, although of course he does; Harry vets all of Niall’s choices for professional companionship. But something about the casual acknowledgement is thrilling, not just that Louis knows he plays football, but that he’s actually watched. Niall wants to ask for more, and he can see in Louis’s face that Louis knows it, but it’s all tempered by the knowledge that he’s not playing right now, that he can’t be sure he’ll play again. He looks down at his knee, braced so Louis can’t see the angry weal of scar tissue from the surgery. Louis’s eyes follow Niall’s, and it seems like he’s going to say something, although that would be a bit disappointing, honestly. Louis hasn’t lied to him yet, and any cheerful thing he said about Niall’s knee would be necessarily dishonest. No one has a bloody clue how it’s going to work out yet. But Louis doesn’t offer any words of encouragement, just kisses Niall on the cheek. “Shall I get dressed before we discuss the details of your payment plan?” he asks.

Niall circles one of Louis’s nipples with his thumb. “I like you like this.”

Louis grins. “All right then. So generally if I’ve got a client who wants something more regular, I reduce my rate a bit.”

“You like repeat customers?”

“At least as much as they like me.”

 

Laura is slight and pretty and stronger than she looks, running Niall through a new set of exercises with brutal precision, making him grit his teeth with pain as she coaxes his leg higher. He fists his hands against the carpet and tries a grin when she lets him go. He wants to be a good sport; this is all for his benefit after all. And he likes Laura a lot; when he’d met her at the hospital before his surgery, the sound of another Irish voice had been hugely comforting. “You don’t have to act as though it doesn’t hurt,” she tells him, rubbing at the muscles of his thigh. “It’s supposed to hurt a bit. That’s how it gets better. But if you don’t tell me when it hurts, I can’t judge if it’s too much.”

“All right,” says Niall. He knows he needs to not strain, but he also knows that they’re coming up on the period where he’ll have to use his leg even less than he is now, avoid putting any weight on it while the tendons mend themselves. He has to get as much movement as he can back now. He has to do everything he can to get better.

“Let’s take a break, yeah?” says Laura. “Relax a bit and tell me how you’ve been spending your time off.”

He chats to her about the telly, the classic football DVDs Harry’s sent along, the things he’s been cooking while sat on a bar stool in the kitchen. “Reckon I might have a second career as a chef.”

“Have you made me anything?”

“You haven’t asked for anything. But sure as I would, if you wanted.”

“Maybe next time. Something really posh and complicated.” She winks at him.

Niall laughs. “Keep dreaming, Whitmore. I’m a rank amateur.”

“I’m sure you can do anything you put your mind to.”

 

Niall’s second appointment with Louis is another Tuesday afternoon, and he’s spent the morning making several batches of cheese and bacon scones, which had seemed like the best combination when he’d seen the recipe online. But he’d burned the first batch, and added too little baking powder to the second, so now it’s been a crippling waste of bacon, and he’s not sure the third batch are actually any good. Baking isn’t like other kinds of cooking.

Louis’s eyes widen when Niall opens the door, and he swallows as he sniffs the air. “Hey,” says Niall. “Have you had lunch?”

“I’m bloody glad the answer is no,” Louis replies. “What is that smell, and can I have some?”

Niall laughs. “Cheese and bacon scones. Come and see if they’re cool enough to eat.” Louis follows him through to the kitchen, puts the kettle on without asking, and nicks the teapot out of Niall’s dish drainer. 

“Proper tea, do you reckon?” he says, holding up the teapot.

“Little fingers in the air and all?”

“Absolutely.” 

Niall settles himself at the table, lets Louis get him a second chair for his leg. Louis rolls up his sleeves to his elbows, and Niall looks at the tattoos on his tanned right forearm. It’s not as though he hadn’t noticed them last time, but there’d been plenty of other things about Louis’s body to keep him occupied. Some of them just look like silly kid stuff, and Niall wonders if they all mean something, realizes that if he’s going to be seeing Louis once a week, he might even have a chance to find out.

Louis closes his eyes at the first bite of scone, makes a noise that’s nearly a whimper of pleasure. “Jesus Christ, Niall,” he says when he’s swallowed. “This is bloody amazing.”

“Had to chuck the first two batches because they didn’t come out right.”

“Shh, you’re spoiling the magic.” He grins around another bite of scone, and Niall finds it hard to believe he’s like this with all his clients, this casual. But Niall likes it, relaxes into being with Louis like a mate.

Louis pours him a cup of tea and pushes it across the table. “Aren’t you going to taste the fruits of your labour?”

“Nah,” says Niall. “Poisoned, aren’t they?”

Louis doesn’t even pause his chewing, just raises his eyebrows. “If I die, I die happy.”

Niall finally tries one of his own scones, buttery and salty and still warm, and he has to give himself a bit of credit. They’re as delicious as Louis said. The two of them eat in silence for a minute, sipping tea and savouring the crunch of the bacon. 

“Do you want to talk about what we’ll do after this?” Louis says. “I suspect you don’t just have a kink for baked goods.”

Niall’s only seen the same hooker twice on a handful of occasions, and those times there’d been months between the appointments, in cities they’d played in regularly, with men who’d seemed easy and responsive the first time through. It was long enough that their memories of him were vague, and they were strangers all over again. He’s interested to see how different it already is with Louis. “I liked last time a lot,” says Niall.

“Yeah? I didn’t pre-lube this time, just in case.”

“I like to do it myself.”

“Quite the mouth on you too, I noticed.”

Niall looks at Louis’s lips until he notices and licks them, pink dart of his tongue along the edge and then gone again. “Yours looks all right too. Might have to give that a try.”

Louis sets down his mug and goes to his knees in what seems like a single motion, and Niall’s breath catches in his throat. “Like this?” asks Louis.

Niall catches a hand in Louis’s hair, strokes it gently. “If you like.”

Louis closes his eyes, presses a kiss to the inside of Niall’s thigh, then higher. Niall’s in basketball shorts today, and he can feel the damp heat of Louis’s mouth through the thin material, at the join of his hip and then right up against the thickening line of his cock. Louis teases him for a minute, sucking at him through the fabric, making a wet mess of the shorts until Niall swears and pushes him away. It’s hard to get them over his hips without jarring his knee, and Louis helps roll them down just enough that he can get at Niall’s dick. His lips part, and his tongue presses at Niall’s slit, one of his hands cupped around the base of Niall’s cock to guide it. He sucks gently at the head, rolling his tongue around it like a sweet, working over it wetly as his hand grips lower.

Niall presses a little at the back of Louis’s neck, urging him down further, and Louis goes pliant for him, lets himself be guided. The wet sound of his sucking seems obscenely loud in the quiet kitchen, and Niall cards his fingers through Louis’s soft hair, tugs to slow him down when he feels his balls tense up. “Might want to do this for a while,” he admits, and Louis takes him in all the way to the back of his throat once before pulling off to lick at the head again. He keeps Niall on the edge for what feels like years, turning away to sip shallow breaths against Niall’s thigh when Niall’s sure he’s about to come. Louis’s cheeks go pink, and Niall rubs his thumb across his hot skin, keeps his hand cupped around Louis’s jaw as Louis starts to suck him again. Louis looks up at him, eyes crinkled at the corners, and Niall can feel the way he would be smiling if his mouth weren’t so full.

“Anytime you’re ready, love,” Louis says the next time he pulls off, and his voice is hoarse and his eyes have started to tear up a bit as he takes Niall as deep as he can. “Want to come in my mouth?” Louis keeps wanking him lazily, and Niall’s cock is slick with spit, sliding through the circle of his fingers.

“On your face,” Niall pants out. “Please.”

“Anything you like.” Louis closes his eyes and wanks Niall faster, his grip steady and sure. Niall watches Louis’s eyebrows draw together, and the first gush of his come hits Louis’s cheek and rolls down like tears. Louis makes a small noise and holds still until Niall’s finished, gives one last twist of his wrist before pulling off and looking up. Niall is gasping above him, slumping back in his chair.

“Come here,” he says, and Louis pushes himself to his feet, leans in to let Niall lick the come off his face and feed it back to him in a slow, wet kiss. He wants to pin Louis against the nearest wall and do this properly, lap up every drop and kiss Louis until they taste exactly the same. But he can’t do that. So he makes do with this, Louis nuzzling at his mouth, the angle awkward but good enough.

“That all right then?” Louis asks, rough and low, reaching down to help Niall tug his bottoms up again, the fabric going damp over his softening cock.

“Brilliant,” says Niall. “Just as advertised.”

Louis grins, lips reddened and swollen. “Don’t reckon I’ve ever advertised. Bit private about that sort of thing.”

“Where’d Harry find you then?”

“That your assistant who talks so slow? I reckon he’s got connections. Knows my mates, probably.”

Niall assumes that’s true. He doesn’t much like middlemen, so he asks Harry to find him independent contractors, as it were, wherever possible. “I’m glad he found you.”

“What a lovely sentiment, Niall.” Louis gives a cheeky grin, and Niall reaches round to pinch his bum. He’s been with plenty of men who were friendly, even witty, but never with someone who teased like Louis does. He has a desperate flash of curiosity about Louis’s other clients. He knows the sorts of men who have as much money as he does, and it’s hard to imagine they’d all go for a mouthy prostitute, even one as lovely as Louis.

“Are you always like this?” asks Niall, but it must come out wrong because Louis jerks back as though he’s been slapped.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” he says, voice going low and serious. “Just a bit of a laugh.”

Niall reaches out a hand to him, frowns to show he isn’t angry. “No, I like it. I like you joking with me. But it’s not, like, reckon it’s not what everyone likes. Everyone you see.” He’s digging in deeper now, deeper than he meant to. He never asks the men he sees to talk about their other clients, wouldn’t dare. But he can’t let Louis think he doesn’t like it, not when things are so easy.

“I can be plenty of different people if I have to. I’m happy to do it. Not everyone wants to have a laugh with someone they’re paying to fuck, but it’s all right when they do.”

“So who are you now?”

Louis tilts his head. “Just me, innit? Seemed like that would be all right with you.” Niall hasn’t seen him look worried before, the sour little twist to his mouth.

“It is. It’s been perfect, mate. I’m just not used to it.”

When Louis relaxes, the whole shape of his body changes, like soothing an angry cat. “Good thing we’ll be seeing each other every week then.”

“Yeah,” agrees Niall. “Good thing.”

Later, he rims Louis until his tongue is nearly numb, makes him moan and buck and come from that alone, right as Niall tells him to. He’s so responsive, so entirely lovely, and Niall feels lucky that Harry found him. There are plenty of men in the world Niall wouldn’t want to see week after week.

 

Harry’s started coming over every couple of days, murmuring that he’s not hungry and then eating everything Niall puts in front of him, chatting about his kitchen refurbishment over spinach pies.

“God, this is amazing. You know, Nick made me a spinach pie on our third date,” says Harry with his mouth full.

“How was it?” asks Niall.

“Lightly charred,” replies Harry fondly. “He’s a dreadful cook.”

When Harry first became Niall’s PA, he didn’t talk about his personal life, kept himself to himself, and so did Niall. But in the last two and a half years, they’ve become like family, and it was massively easier to finally tell Harry he was gay once he knew Harry had a boyfriend. When Harry and Nick got married last Christmas, Niall landed himself in the tabloids for being in their wedding party—“Chelsea Midfielder Raises Eyebrows As He Blesses Gay Union”, etc.—and if he ever planned on coming out publicly, that might have been the moment to do it. But in the end, it was enough that he was supporting his friends. He doesn’t need everyone digging into his business.

“Maybe the new kitchen’ll inspire him,” says Niall.

“Not a chance, mate. But I plan on making good use of it. I’ll be getting this recipe off you before I go.” He finishes off the last of his pie in one bite. “Did you make your own filo?” he asks around the crumbs.

“Yeah. Bit of trial and error, but I got it eventually.”

“I always think I’d like to do that, but it takes so long to get it right.”

“Lucky for me I have nothing but time.” He rubs at his thigh where he can feel a cramp coming. Laura worked him hard this morning, and he’s glad of it, but it’s not exactly fun.

“How’s your new Tuesday afternoon pal?”

Niall can’t help grinning. “Very friendly.”

“He seemed friendly on the phone. Professional and everything.” Harry talks to prostitutes on Niall’s behalf pretty regularly throughout the season, but they rarely talk about what Harry thinks of them, except in the most basic way. “So he’s doing well by you?”

“Better than I thought, if I’m honest. It’s been a good long while since I saw the same bloke more than twice.”

Harry looks a bit sad at that, and Niall reckons that’s one of the things about married life: it makes you start thinking everyone else should get married. But Niall wouldn’t want to make a proper boyfriend hide for him, and he doesn’t want to deal with being a “gay athlete” for the rest of his career. He thinks he’s found a good compromise. “Is it weird, though, like, seeing him again and again and knowing it’s just business?”

Niall frowns, thinking of Louis’s sly smile in his kitchen. “I mean, I’m paying him, right? But I reckon it’s not just business.” As soon as he says it, he sees how naïve it is, something every idiot john in the world has thought to himself sometime, trying to justify what he’s doing. “All right, it probably is. But he’s a right laugh. Easy to talk to. Easy to do other things with, too. I like him.”

Harry looks at him for a moment and then changes the subject. “So there’s that charity auction next month. Are you ready to go out in the spotlight again?”

“Will be in a month, I hope.” For all that he feels like he’s going bloody stir-crazy sometimes, it’s nice to not be hassled, to just live his life quietly and only see the people he chooses.

 

It’s proper warm and sunny the next time Louis comes round, and Niall’s got all his windows flung open so the scent of early summer can filter in. He doesn’t let himself think about how fucking long the circuit of the downstairs took him, the way he’d had to rest in each room after prying open the windows.

“Hiya,” says Louis, as Niall opens the door to find him in a t-shirt and dark, fitted jeans. He looks mussed and natural and fucking edible. “It’s bloody gorgeous outside, isn’t it?”

“It is,” agrees Niall. “Perfect day, I reckon.” He leads Louis through to the kitchen as usual, serves up a bit of the curry he made last night before Louis even asks.

“Surprised I didn’t find you sunning yourself in the back garden, if I’m honest,” says Louis.

Niall pats his own cheek. “This fair Irish skin don’t tan up that well.”

“How do you handle being out on the pitch all the time then? You never look burnt to a crisp.”

Louis’s referenced watching Niall’s matches before, but this time it feels like even more of an invitation than usual. “Suncream,” says Niall. “You watch a lot of football then?”

Louis swallows a mouthful of curry and grins. “Loads. I love it. I was proper obsessed when I was younger. Thought I might go for it professionally, but I was a bit shit, really. Had to go with what I was really good at.” He says it lightly, but there’s a sharp little edge to it, like maybe he defends himself a lot. He’s amazing in bed, but Niall has a feeling he could be amazing at a lot of things.

“Do you still play?”

“Just kicking a ball around with my mates. I haven’t played for real since the under-sixteens back in Doncaster.”

Niall thinks about Louis’s body, the curves of him, the way he moves. “Reckon you’d be fun to watch on the pitch.”

“For mocking purposes, I’m sure. Quite a laugh for you.”

Niall shakes his head. “Bet you’re gorgeous. You know, you were saying something about the back garden. We could go out there and you could have a kick around. I’d let you borrow some of my boots.”

Louis eyes him warily. “Niall, I’m here for whatever you want, but if you’re taking the piss right now, I’ll be genuinely saddened in my soul.”

“I’m not a bit. You said you played, and I reckon the best kind of foreplay is a good workout.”

Louis borrows a pair of shorts and some socks off Niall, and seems almost hesitant taking the boots as well. “This is proper, like, professional kit. Are you sure you want me to take them?”

“You think you’ll mess ‘em up? Reckon you play harder than I do?”

Louis’s eyes narrow, but he can’t protest, caught between a rock and a hard place. “How do you know they’re the right size?”

“I’ll get you one of the new pairs.” Louis looks on the verge of a protest about that, too, but Niall talks right over him. “I’ve got loads of them, mate. You can fuck with the laces as much as you like. It’s just been a bloody long time since I got to watch anyone on the pitch, and it’d be nice to see what I’m missing out on.”

Louis goes a bit shy then, an unexpected dip of his head that flings his hair into his face. “I’m not a pro, Niall. Far from it. So I don’t think you should expect much.”

“That’s all right. I’ll put you through your paces. You’ll be in peak form when I’m done with you.”

“Expect I will at that,” says Louis, lips quirking into a dirty smile.

 

Niall hasn’t been outdoors in a few days, and the sun feels good on his face as he tilts his head up. His garden is large and flat, and he had almost no part in the landscaping, but he likes it, a hedge along the fence of his nearest neighbours, a couple of tall trees at the far edge, and a couple of hardy flowering bushes that his cousins’ kids like to play in when they visit. The rest is just grass, and he chucks a football out into the middle of it, settling himself in a chair at the edge of the patio.

“Go to it then,” says Niall, gesturing at the ball.

Louis goes up on his toes to stretch, arms high over his head before he bounces back down on the balls of his feet. He pulls one foot up behind him, hands firm on his own ankle as he bends back, showing off his curves. Niall likes him in shorts, the solid tanned curves of his calves above the bright white of Niall’s socks. “What exactly do you want me to do, mate?” He switches legs, holds for a count of ten that he taps out against his ankle, and then bends at the waist to touch his toes, showing off his arse in Niall’s shorts.

“Don’t matter much to me. I just want to see how you’d move on the pitch. You can just do keepie-uppies across the garden. I don’t mind.”

It’s funny how Louis hesitates, shifting foot to foot like he’s not sure what to do. He uses his body for a living, knows how to move and bend for Niall in bed, but somehow this is too much for him. He sucks at his lower lip as he walks out to the ball and nudges it with his toe. “Keepie-uppies, eh?”

Louis kicks the ball high in the air in the scoop of his foot, catches it on his knee, once and then again, bumps it up to hit it on the side of his ankle. “Are you keeping count?” Louis calls.

Niall isn’t. Louis bends backwards to catch the ball with the curve of his shoulder, the narrow stretch of his chest, the wiry muscle of his thigh. Every part of him predicts the ball’s next fall, turning it into a dance, and it’s every bit what Niall wanted. This isn’t a mindless drill, and there’s no steady rhythm to it, Louis adjusting to catch the ball again and again until he kicks it carelessly too high, and he sees before it lands that he can’t get it. He dribbles it back to the patio instead, moving it lazily between his feet before kicking it into the leg of Niall’s chair. “What do you reckon, boss? Do I make the squad?”

Niall looks him up and down. His cheeks are flushed and his hair is starting to cling stickily to his forehead. There’s a hint of sweat dampening the collar of his t-shirt so it lies enticingly against the wing of his collarbone. “Take your top off and try it again,” says Niall, sliding a hand under the hem of Louis’s t-shirt to touch the warm skin of his waist.

Louis grins, pulls his top up enough to reveal a narrow strip of his belly, makes a proper striptease of it, sliding his hands up his chest and dragging the shirt with them. Niall loves the slight softness of him, the compact muscle beneath. He presses his lips to the bridge of Louis’s sternum, licks away salt. “Do it again,” he says. “Want to watch you again.”

Louis jogs back out with the ball, moving it between his feet and then kicking it into the air again, flipping it up with his knee, his shoulder, bouncing it off the top of his head and running to kick it again, sunlight glancing off the curves of muscle in his back, highlighting the beaded sweat in the furrow of his spine.

“Pretend the goal is between those bushes,” Niall calls eventually. “And there’s a defender coming at you on the left. How are you going to make it past him?”

Louis pulls into a spin, kicking the ball away and then running to catch it again, slamming it hard into the back fence. He waves his arms over his head, runs in a loop around the garden that brings him back to Niall’s chair. He’s short of breath this time, laughing at himself. “Bloody hell but I’m out of shape,” he says, leaning on the back of Niall’s chair.

Niall steadies him with a hand on his hip. “You were brilliant, though. Think you’d have made a great footballer if you’d kept with it. Train you up and you’d be a star.” He presses a kiss to the smooth skin of Louis’s belly, feels the in and out of his breath.

Louis laughs and tugs at Niall’s hair. “You’re talking me up too much,” he says. “I’ll get a swelled head.”

Niall takes the opportunity to slide a hand up the leg of Louis’s shorts, cup a hand around his prick. “Reckon I’d like your head a bit swelled.” He gives a few cursory strokes and Louis murmurs encouragingly as his dick starts to fatten up in Niall’s grasp.

“Oh,” he says, drawing it out long and knowing. “Yes, I do recall this was foreplay.”

Niall peels down the shorts and sucks the head of Louis’s cock into his mouth, grateful as he’s ever been for hedges and fences and distant neighbours. Louis moans above him, and Niall cups his hands around the backs of Louis’s trembling thighs, holding him in place for his mouth. “Fuck, I wish the rewards of exercise were always this good,” Louis sighs, and Niall sneaks a finger up behind his balls to nudge at his hole. 

He pulls off to fumble out the condom and lube in his pocket, looks up at Louis. “Can we do it out here? Are you up for it?”

He doesn’t think Louis will say no, but he likes the moment’s consideration he gives it, the way he knows it’s a real question. “Your knee be all right for that?”

Niall rubs at his thigh, shifts his foot on the edge of the flowerpot where he’s propped it. “You’ll just have to keep off it as much as you can, and I’ll be all right.”

Louis puts his hands on his hips and considers the angles. His dick’s out, standing up ruddy and proud, and Niall gives it another little lick because he can’t imagine leaving a thing like that alone. “Might be best if you do it from behind, I reckon. I can brace myself better, and you’ll have a nice view as well.”

“All right with me,” says Niall. He flips the cap on the lube. “Do you want to do the honours or would you rather I do it for you?”

“I could do it meself and show you how I like it.” Niall realises he hasn’t seen much of that up to now, and he’s glad for the opportunity.

“Show me,” he says. Louis’s just stood there in the middle of Niall’s garden, socks and football boots and nothing else, and he’s so gorgeously curvy and sweaty and flushed. He takes the lube and turns around, leaving his arse right at eye level for Niall, the only part of him that’s pale.

Louis fucks himself open with swift, gentle strokes, working two fingers steadily in and out of his arse, the rim of his hole slickly pink around them. He holds himself open with his other hand, giving Niall the view, and Niall kisses one rounded cheek before leaning back to ease his shorts off his hips.

He rubs a hand up the length of his dick, then rolls the condom down over it. “Ready when you are, chief,” he says, touching Louis’s hip.

Louis pulls his fingers out of himself, and Niall watches his hole flex shut. He’s tempted to touch it, but Louis’s already angling himself down, sinking into Niall’s lap, using one hand to angle himself onto Niall’s cock. Niall pushes and Louis opens, and his thighs shudder as he takes in the whole length of Niall’s cock, sliding down until their hips meet, the hard curve of Niall’s pelvis and the soft fullness of Louis’s arse. He wiggles his hips, working until he’s stable in his squat over Niall’s lap. Niall watches Louis’s legs work as he lifts himself up and sits back down for the first time.

He takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “Not sure how long I can keep this up for, honestly.”

“S’alright,” Niall tells him, stroking up his sides, passing over the points where he knows Louis is ticklish. “However long you can, and then I’ll finish in your mouth, yeah?”

“Yeah,” agrees Louis. His breath is shaky, and there’s tension knotted all up and down his body. He’s gripping almost too tight on Niall’s cock, and Niall presses a kiss to the ball of his shoulder as he leans back for a moment, resting on Niall’s chest. 

He watches Louis struggle for leverage, moving slowly on Niall’s cock, gasping as it presses more deeply into him. He’s rooted on it, and the slick grasp of his arsehole is giving Niall most of what he needs already. He sucks at the side of Louis’s neck, tasting clean sweat and stopping before he leaves a mark. Louis shivers and bears down harder, and Niall manages to hitch his hips up a little, driving into him, Louis’s insides giving for him. “You were a dream with that ball, Lou,” Niall says, biting at the lobe of Louis’s ear, caressing the long, golden slope of his spine. “The way you move is so fucking sexy.”

Louis gives a startled little laugh, pauses in the slow circles he’s making with his hips. He takes a breath like he wants to argue, but then he doesn’t, dipping his head forward and resting his palms on his thighs. He’s trembling, and Niall reaches round to circle the hard shaft of his cock, wanking him gently.

“Is this good for you?” he asks. “If it’s not, you can say.” He’s so tight, so tense, and every move he makes seems to cost him as he tries to keep his weight off Niall’s knee.

“It’s been better, if I’m honest,” he says hesitantly. “I just don’t want to hurt you.”

Niall wants to say he’s fine, he can take it, he’ll yell if it hurts. But there’s this constant creeping horror in the back of his mind, the threat that any wrong move could undo the good of all the physio. If he tears something again now, they might not be able to put it right. “Why don’t you blow me then, and we’ll get back to the rest later if we can?”

Louis slips off Niall’s cock, seems relieved to go to his knees on the flagstones. He strips off the condom and puts his lips to the dripping tip of Niall’s cock, opening slowly to take him in. He gives a little hard suction at the head and squeezes around the base, and Niall closes his eyes as Louis starts up a rhythm. He still sees Louis behind his eyes, but it’s Louis with the football, chasing it down the garden with a grin so big it’s nearly a grimace, dipping down to catch it on the crown of his head, his hair flying every which way. Niall touches the hollow of his cheek, and Louis looks up at him. He’s flawless in the afternoon sunshine, his hair turning gold at the ends, his skin smoothly bronzed. Niall’s balls are tight with need as Louis draws back to tease his slit before taking him in properly again. “About to come, love,” Niall warns, and Louis’s eyes close as he sucks harder, cupping Niall’s balls in his palm.

Niall tips his head back as he comes, draws his fingertips along the working column of Louis’s throat. Louis holds Niall’s dick on his tongue for a moment before sitting back, lips dark and slightly swollen. “Come and kiss me then,” says Niall.

Louis leans into him, presses their mouths together and licks at Niall’s tongue. He knees up onto the chair, balanced in a precarious straddle over Niall’s thighs. Niall puts a hand on his waist to steady him, can’t resist sliding the other down to play in the slick of Louis’s crack. Louis’s arsehole is still tender and open from his cock, and Niall slips two fingers into him with little resistance, Louis’s hole sucking wetly at them. Louis makes a soft sound and bites Niall’s lip as Niall works his fingertips over his prostate, rubbing strong, steady circles there. “Think you can come on my fingers like this, love?” Niall asks, the words brushing Louis’s open lips.

Louis takes a straining breath. “Reckon I could,” he says. He eases back farther onto Niall’s fingers, and Niall crooks them slightly, watching as Louis’s cock begins to drip at the tip, smearing wetly on Louis’s bare belly. It doesn’t take long before Louis is sobbing and swearing, pressed nose to nose with Niall, his breath hot and uneven on Niall’s lips.

“Do you want it?” Niall asks.

“So much,” Louis replies, rocking back onto Niall’s fingers.

“How much?”

Louis is shivering, and his skin is pricked with gooseflesh. “So much. Please. Please.” His voice is cracking, and his thighs are trembling, and Niall doesn’t think he’s ever seen Louis so taken apart. He slips his two fingers out and replaces them with three, twisting deeply and avoiding the sensitive swell of Louis’s prostate. Louis’s hands are white-knuckled on the back of the chair, and his dick is sitting fat and tight against his belly. “I need it,” Louis whispers at the corner of Niall’s mouth, bearing down on Niall’s fingers, rocking his hips to try and get them where he wants them. “Now. Please. Let me come.”

“You asked so nicely,” says Niall, driving his fingers into the clutch of Louis’s arsehole once, twice more. “Let me see you.”

Their eyes meet for an endless, intimate moment, and then Louis’s flutter shut as he starts to shoot, long streaks spattering up his chest. He gasps and clenches on Niall’s fingers, and his whole body is moving with his breath. Niall doesn’t pull out as Louis leans heavily into him, his knees tucked in tight against Niall’s hips. He circles his thumb behind Louis’s balls, stroking that sensitive stretch of skin as Louis clings to him. “Fuck,” Louis whispers. “Are you okay?”

Niall chuckles. “Me, mate? Are _you_ okay?”

“Yeah. God. Yeah. I haven’t come like that in a while.”

“Sure and you say that to all the boys,” Niall replies. He kisses Louis’s cheek as Louis muffles his face in the side of Niall’s neck.

“I don’t lie to you,” Louis says, soft and serious.

Niall could swear his heartbeat stutters. “All right.” He can’t trust the feeling in his chest, the tight clutch of affection and pride. But he trusts Louis, believes him like he would any of the other people he works with. He finally pulls out of Louis’s arse, pets at the swollen rim of Louis’s hole as Louis gives a strangled little gasp of protest.

“Christ, sorry. I didn’t mean to fall on you.”

“You’re all right.” Niall laces his hands behind Louis’s back, mindful of the fact they’re still nearly naked in the middle of the garden, and with the sun behind a cloud it’s cooler. Louis nuzzles Niall’s cheek. “When you think you can get up, you should get your kit on. I won’t have you dying of exposure.”

“Right,” says Louis. “Yeah. Good.” He clambers off Niall’s lap, all loose limbed and pliant, and steps back into the shorts, tucking his t-shirt into the waistband. They look at each other for a long moment before Louis reaches out a hand for Niall to brace against as he gets out of the chair. Their fingers fold warmly together, and it’s like dancing for a moment, the way their bodies move toward each other.

Louis brings him tea in bed when they get back inside, leans beside Niall on the headboard and sips his own. Niall looks at the clock on the opposite wall. “Reckon you’ll be going soon,” he says. For the first time, three hours hasn’t felt like anywhere near enough.

Louis’s shrug brings their arms together from elbow to shoulder, and he leans in to kiss Niall’s cheek. “I could stay for a bit, if you like. I’m a bit sore, if I’m honest.”

And Niall likes that, down deep in the pit of his stomach. He should be ashamed, he knows, and he is, a bit, because he doesn’t want to hurt Louis, knows there must be plenty of men who do without him adding on. But the thought of fucking Louis sore on his fingers and making him come so hard he couldn’t stand is intoxicating. “You don’t charge for overtime?”

“I’ve got nowhere to be until six, so I’ve got plenty of time, and you’re always giving me lunch and everything. I’m not feeling taken advantage of in the slightest.”

Niall grins. “Bit of a cuddle then, to round out the afternoon?” he asks.

“Sounds all right to me,” says Louis, setting aside his tea and making a nest of the duvet around them. Niall kisses the tip of his nose and doesn’t say what he’s feeling.

 

Every year Niall has a barbecue to celebrate the start of the summer. It was harder in his flat in east London, with the little barbecue on the balcony, and everyone he knew crammed in around it, but now he’s got the house he can make a proper night of it. Last year, nearly the whole team turned up with their wives and girlfriends, not to mention his friends and family from all over. He stood by the barbecue with a beer in hand, dishing out burgers and sausages and pretty much brimming over with happiness as he watched his friends talk to each other.

This year, he’s put things off a bit, waiting to see how he felt, and now he’s got less than a week to finalize his guest list and make sure he’s got all the food in. Harry comes over Monday morning to make notes on his iPad. Niall feeds him a bacon sandwich and watches him eye his touchscreen as he wipes grease on his jeans. “So that’s like, 50 people, at last count?” says Harry, clearly torn between getting back to his spreadsheet and asking for another sandwich.

Niall doesn’t doubt it. He’s got plenty of friends, and his brother’s supposed to come to stay for the week, with his wife and Niall’s little nephew, who was just a little bundle in a blanket last year. Then there’s his cousins from London, and the team, of course, and all the people he works with: Harry and his husband, Perrie and Jesy from the publicity department, assorted grounds crew and cleaning staff, loads of people, and plenty of them with a plus-one as well.

“Wish I could invite Louis,” he says, offhanded as he digs into a sandwich of his own.

Harry gives him a long look as Niall chews.

“Whatever you’re thinking, let’s hear it, mate.”

“You have feelings for him, don’t you?” says Harry.

Niall puts his sandwich down, licks brown sauce off his fingers. “He’s a nice bloke,” Niall tells him. “We have a laugh.”

Harry bites his lip. “You’re paying him for sex though. I just, like, don’t want you to forget that. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m not getting hurt,” says Niall. “I mean, I’m paying you, aren’t I? And you come to my parties.”

“Well, you’re not paying me for sex.” Harry flutters his eyelashes. “Not yet, anyway.”

Niall blows him a kiss across the table. “I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if I’d met him just out in the world somewhere.”

“Niall, you could get a proper boyfriend in about a second and a half, if you wanted.”

Niall doesn’t want to be angry at Harry, but a little curl of annoyance starts in his chest. “I don’t want a boyfriend though. I want what I have.”

“Okay,” says Harry, holding up his hands. “You know I’ll help you get whatever, if you change your mind. Now, are you going to finish that?”

Niall crams the rest of his sandwich in his mouth in one go and chews messily.

Harry scowls. “You could have just said no.”

Niall shows off his mouthful of half-chewed food. Harry laughs and turns back to his iPad. There’s loads of decisions to make still, and Niall gets wrapped up in debating quantities of sausage to buy.

 

Louis comes round at the usual time on Tuesday afternoon, and Niall takes him to bed immediately, doesn’t even stop in the kitchen for tea and small talk. After the first round, while Louis is curled against Niall’s chest and Niall’s fingers are still dancing along the groove of Louis’s spine, Louis says, “Where’s all the energy come from, love? You seem nearly high-strung today.”

“Is it all right if you don’t come next week?” Niall replies. He hadn’t really thought about it before, how weird it is to be spending so much time who has to stay completely separate from the rest of his life, but now he can’t seem to stop. “My brother’s coming to stay next week, and it would just be a bit easier…”

Louis lands a kiss on his collarbone and sits up. “You don’t need to explain. We can reschedule for another time, or skip a week. I’m good at filling my time.”

But Niall feels compelled to keep explaining. “I’m having a barbecue at the weekend, not a big deal, casual and everything, but pretty much everyone I know drinking beers and eating sausages in the back garden.”

“Sounds like you need some stress relief before the day then,” offers Louis.

“Maybe.” Louis’s being so professional, and Niall is almost sad about that, and then annoyed at his own feelings. Louis isn’t his mate, and it won’t do either of them any good for him to forget that. But he can’t resist saying, “Shame you can’t come.”

Louis cocks his head. “I can, if you like. I go to a lot of parties as an escort.”

Niall pulls up the duvet and folds his arms across his chest, making himself smaller. “I didn’t mean, like, as an escort. I mean, like, my PA comes, and our publicists, and other people I work with. Even though I’m their job.”

Louis fiddles uncomfortably with the corner of the duvet. “That’s not really something we do in my line of work.” Niall wants to think he’s imagining the pity in Louis’s voice, but he’s probably not. Louis’s probably had plenty of misguided clients want things they couldn’t have.

“Right, yeah. I know. I was just thinking, it’s weird that it’s so different.”

“Yeah,” says Louis. “I bet you throw a great party.”

“Course I do,” replies Niall. “I do a fantastic sausage, too.”

Louis laughs, and the awkwardness disperses. “I’m one hundred per cent certain that’s a euphemism.”

Niall reaches out for him. “Come here and find out.”

 

Greg and Denise arrive with Theo on Friday night, and Niall apologises at least a dozen times for not fetching them from the airport, even though he won’t be safe to drive for another month. They settle in around the living room, and Niall wishes he could get down on the floor with Theo and his toy cars until Theo starts bringing them over to him on the sofa, toddling over on unsteady legs. He’s getting so big so fast, and the last time Niall saw him, he was barely standing on his own, but now here he is, handing over a lorry with a solemn look on his face. Niall rolls it along the front of the sofa making “vroom” noises.

“What do you reckon it’s carrying, Theo?” he asks.

“Bears,” says Theo, and hands Niall a purple race car as well.

“Do you think this guy might be chasing the lorry trying to get the bears?”

“Yeah,” says Theo, pushing the lorry to the other end of the sofa. “But he’s fast.”

Niall keeps asking him questions, running the cars on a chase up Theo’s arm and making him laugh.

“You’re made for that, I reckon,” says Greg, and Niall looks up.

“Made to save a load of bears from getting stolen?” he says. “Yeah, I practice.” He tickles Theo under the arms and Theo falls back laughing.

“I think we’re wondering more when Theo might have a little cousin to play with,” says Denise.

Niall smiles tightly and pats his belly. “Afraid getting myself in the family way might delay me getting back on the pitch.”

Greg gives a sad little nod. “We’re gonna have to try harder, Dee. Our Nialler here seems to like his bachelorhood a bit too well.”

Niall ruffles Theo’s hair. “Just give me some time with this one once in a while, and I’ll be good.”

They look at each other, and Niall sees them thinking they know something about him, about how his life is. He gives his attention back to Theo, who couldn’t give a fuck about Niall’s personal life as long as his cars keep moving.

 

About half past six, a hand claps Niall on the shoulder. He’s sat on his barstool by the barbecue, bending to flip over the first round of burgers, and he looks up to find Liam stood beside him. “Let me take over for a while, mate,” says Liam, nudging Niall away from the barbecue. Liam started playing for Chelsea the same year Niall did, and they’ve always looked out for each other a bit, so maybe it’s not a surprise that Liam’s the one taking the spatula from Niall’s hand and shooing him towards the rest of the party.

It’s a bit difficult manoeuvring on the patio with his crutches, but it doesn’t much matter because he’s stopping every two feet to chat to someone else. “Oh, Niall, it’s so good to see you up and about, love,” says Perrie from publicity, kissing Niall on the cheek. “We’ve missed your laugh round the office every single day. And Sunday roasts haven’t been the same without you.”

“Believe me, I’ve missed you lot, too. Being stuck at home all the time is shit.”

“How are you feeling now?” asks Perrie’s husband, Zayn. “We’d been thinking we might just like invite ourselves round sometime, but the missus said that’d be a bit forward.”

“Well, maybe ring first, but I’d love it if you wanted to come by.” He doesn’t say that he’s not asked anyone round because he didn’t want their pity, but that’s basically the case. “Been practicing my cookery. Might do up a Sunday roast meself, one of these weeks.”

Zayn grins at him. “We’ll consider that an invitation, yeah?”

“Well, try the burgers tonight first. Assuming Liam doesn’t ruin it for all of us.” He says this loudly enough for Liam to hear, and Liam shakes the spatula amiably at him. 

Harry jostles into Niall from behind, and Niall grips his crutches tighter as Harry babbles apologies. “Do you need to sit down?” he asks.

“I’m the host, mate,” Niall replies. “I need to mingle.”

“I think hosting means you get to sit on a throne and let other people feed you grapes,” Harry’s husband Nick puts in. “That’s how I like to handle parties.”

“That’s how I like to handle recovery from serious surgery,” Harry says seriously. “Sit the fuck down, Niall.”

“Bossy, aren’t you?”

“That’s what assistants are for, to know what’s good for you.” Harry’s clearly on the verge of taking him by the ear and dragging him, so Niall goes willingly, settles into a chair and lets people come to him. Which they do, everyone wishing him well and saying how much they miss him, and it’s great until it’s suddenly not anymore. And then he’s just sad and scared and lonely again, looking up at the others from the team and thinking that however hard he works right now, he may not be one of them again. There’s already another midfielder training up to take his place for the start of the season, and he and Niall have been giving each other shaky smiles all evening. Sandy was rarely a part of the starting line-up last season, and he and Niall have never been especially close, but everyone in the club is honorary family, and he doesn’t like the little swirl of jealousy in his belly when he sees Sandy up and about on two good legs.

He rubs a hand over his thigh. Greg comes and sits down on the arm of Niall’s chair, hands over a plate of food. “You’ll be out on the pitch with these lads again soon enough, bro. Don’t worry.” He squeezes Niall’s shoulder and Niall smiles up at him.

“Thanks.” He tucks into the food, waves Harry over for company. Nick is holding court to some of the other players, gesturing and laughing. He’s a radio DJ, and the sound of his voice carries.

“All right, Niall?” says Harry. “Need a new beer?”

Niall shakes his bottle so it sloshes. “Nah, mate, ta. I’m savouring this round.”

“It’s a great party.”

“Congratulations to the man who planned it then. To Mr Harry Styles.” He clinks his bottle against Harry’s.

Harry laughs. “I just made a lot of lists, mate. You’re the one hosting.” Harry looks at him, squints a little. “You don’t look joyous and party-ful.”

Niall shrugs. “Knee’s hurting a bit, that’s all. Don’t want to spoil the fun for anyone else.”

Harry ruffles Niall’s hair and Niall ruffles his right back, raking it up to a ridiculous height. “I can tell them all to shove off,” says Harry. He scowls dramatically. “I’m very intimidating.”

“You’re a puppy,” says Niall. “But thanks.”

 

“How was the barbecue?” says Louis the next Tuesday, shaking out his umbrella on the front step. It’s warm but wet outside, and Louis’s got a light jacket on over his t-shirt and jeans. The toes of his trainers are damp from the puddles in the drive.

“It was a big hit, mate, thanks,” replies Niall, stepping back to let him in.

“How about the leftovers? Those turn out all right?”

“Not subtle,” says Niall, leading him through to the kitchen. “And they cleared me out good, between the party and my family visiting.” The kettle’s just boiled and he’s got tea steeping in the pot already. “But I was trying out my roasting skills yesterday, so there’s beef for sandwiches. I was thinking I might do something up on Sunday. It was nice having people round. This house is too big for just me, really.”

Louis looks small, stood in the kitchen doorway as though he’s not sure where he fits in the new picture, but he eases into a smile anyway. “Glad you’re getting in a bit of company. You’ve got a bit more colour in your cheeks than you did.”

“And you’re only seeing the ones on my face.” He pours Louis his tea, adds milk before he hands it over. He can’t say he didn’t think of him on Sunday, didn’t joke with the lads and imagine Louis’s laugh chiming in. But he doesn’t want to be that guy, wants to respect Louis as a professional doing a job.

“I’ll have a look at the others later. How’s the old knee then?”

Niall pauses at the fridge, the Tupperware full of leftovers in his hand. “It’s all right, I reckon. Going to see the doc about it on Thursday, and we’ll see what they say then.” He’s got the charity auction next week, and loads of reporters will be there wanting to know when he’s getting back on the pitch. He wants to have good news for them, but even with Laura’s help and the bloody awful exercises she assigns between times, he’s still stiff and aching.

“I’ll have my fingers crossed for you, mate.” He looks serious, sweet, and Niall’s chest goes tight, thinking that’s how friends look at each other, people with genuine care for each other.

Niall shakes his head. “No point in worrying today. Have a sandwich.”

They eat their sandwiches at the table, and Niall zones out a bit, thinking how odd it is to have seen Louis every week for more than a month and still not be able to ask him what he did at the weekend. He realizes Louis’s staring at him like he’s gone daft. “What?”

“I said, how were things with your family visiting?” He sets down his last bite of sandwich. “Listen, love, if you’re distracted, I’m happy to come back another time. Won’t even charge for you feeding me lunch.”

“But you came all this way.”

Louis shrugs. “I don’t live far. It’s only a twenty-minute drive. Do you want me to go?”

Niall shakes his head. He can’t say why it’s eating at him now, not knowing things about Louis. “No, stay. I’m just trying to get my head on straight. I didn’t know you lived so close.”

“Just over the other side of the town centre, really,” says Louis. “I don’t usually say, specially not when I’m going into London or somewhere for a client, but you don’t seem the type for following me home.” He gives a tight smile that says it’s a joke but it hasn’t always been.

“Sorry,” says Niall. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

Louis puts his foot on top of Niall’s under the table, wiggles his cold toes under the hem of Niall’s trackies. “You’re not, love. I’m not gonna tell you anything I don’t feel all right with you knowing.”

“I’m not used to, like, seeing the same person enough that it mattered where they came from. But it’s a bit weird, isn’t it? That you’ve been coming here all this time and I don’t know anything about you?”

Louis’s foot goes still against Niall’s ankle. “You do, though. I told you all about me and footie.”

“But that’s not, fuck, I don’t know. I’m sorry. Probably just need to sort myself out from the weekend.”

“Do you want me to tell you something? About me? Would that help?”

“Dunno. Like what?”

“Well, I’ve got four half sisters back in Doncaster, and when you couldn’t see me last week, I got the train up there to visit them and my mum. The oldest one’s going off to university in September and we won’t have much time as a family.”

“Are you close with them? With your family?”

Louis nods. “I reckon so. Used to be, like, my mum was my best friend, back when I was at school. I felt like I had to look after her a bit, after my stepdad left.”

Niall imagines it, imagines Louis taking over as head of the family, how quick he’d be with smiles and comfort. “Does your mum know what you do for work?”

“She knows I escort. I think we both like to pretend that doesn’t involve having sex for money, but then, how often does anyone like to talk to their parents about sex, really?”

“I never mention it to mine,” Niall says. “Keep meself to meself.”

“Good lad. Doesn’t stop them worrying, obviously. But what would?”

“My brother keeps asking me if I’m going to settle down and get married and everything.”

“Yeah?” says Louis. “Reckon you will?”

“Can’t imagine I would. Don’t want to go through the whole song and dance of being, like, a gay footballer.”

“You really think it would be that bad?” Louis swallows his last bite of sandwich and sips his tea.

“Hell, yes. I’ve seen what people go through. It was bad enough just going to Harry’s wedding last year. People would never stop bloody asking me about my personal life.”

Louis nods. “I used to think I’d like to settle down, have a family. But I reckon that’s not in the cards anymore. Can’t really settle anywhere in my line of work.”

Niall looks at him for long enough that Louis starts to fidget. “Do you like it though?” He’s never asked before, and he’s afraid to ask now, afraid that Louis will lie to him and also afraid that Louis will tell the truth.

“Loaded question, innit? I like it well enough. I’m pretty rubbish at everything else, so it’s a good fit.”

“You’re not rubbish at football.”

“Oh god, stop. I am though. I’m rubbish at football, and I was more rubbish at school, and this the easiest job in the world if you just want to blag your way through.” Niall’s startled by the flash of bitterness in his voice. Louis pauses, then goes back to tapping Niall’s ankle with his foot. “Sorry, love. That wasn’t the right kind of answer.”

“Seemed honest though. Reckon that’s a good thing.”

“I like blagging my way through. I don’t see anything wrong with that. And I like sex, most of the time. I like sex with you, before you ask.”

“I wouldn’t’ve asked.”

“I don’t lie to you, Niall. I meant that. I’m a good liar, but I don’t like doing it if I don’t need to. I haven’t ever needed to lie to you.”

“Is that just because I haven’t asked you to tell me anything?”

“No. You’re lovely. You’re lovely to me, and you’re obviously lovely to everyone you know. I can’t give you more than that. But that’s the truth.”

Niall closes his eyes. “Tell me more about your sisters. What’s the one going to uni called?”

“Lottie. Proper clever. She’s going to study biology. Mum’s proud as can be, and now the other girls are starting up planning what they’ll do.”

“Wow. Talented family you’ve got.”

“What’s your brother do?”

“He’s a delivery driver, back in Ireland.”

“Do you see him often?”

“Not as often as I’d like. It’s hard to get away much, during the season, and they’ve got the baby as well. And now I can’t travel, really, so it’s just a bit difficult. Haven’t seen my dad since Christmas either. He works too much. And I think people don’t realise how far away Ireland can seem, from over here.”

“I’ve never been there,” says Louis.

“It’s beautiful, mate. Most beautiful country in the world. If you ever fancy a holiday, it’s a good choice. I can tell you all the best places to go.”

“Don’t really do holidays, me. Just go where people tell me. So I’ve seen hotel ceilings in most of the great European capitals, one way or another. If that’s not too rude to say.” His toes are warming against Niall’s ankle, and Niall focuses on that point of contact, the way their skin feels pressed together.

“It’s not too rude.” He doesn’t like to think of Louis with other men, not because he’s jealous, but because every time he does, he imagines them old and clumsy and indifferent, like they don’t even care how Louis looks when he comes, don’t even savour it. “But you deserve a proper holiday. It’s nice to go somewhere just for your own reasons.”

“Suppose you do that a lot then?” asks Louis archly. He plucks at Niall’s leg hair with his toes.

“Point taken.” He pauses for a second. “Want to see my ceiling?” It’s hard to tell, for a moment, if Louis takes it for the joke it is, but then he breaks into a grin that lights Niall up inside, and they head for the bedroom as fast as Niall’s crutches can carry him.

“Tell me more about your family,” says Niall later, splayed out in bed with Louis’s head on his chest. He’s thinking it’ll be about five minutes before he wants another go, but for now, he’s working his knuckles into the knotted muscle between Louis’s shoulder blades, and Louis is moaning pleasantly.

“Like what?” Louis slurs.

“Tell me about your mum. What makes her so great?”

Louis hums thoughtfully and props his chin on Niall’s chest. “Pretty much everything, I reckon. S’a bit weird to talk about my mum in this position.”

“Then tell me something else. Something else about you. I don’t mind what.”

So Louis tells the story of how he got fired from selling refreshments at Donnie Rovers matches after he was caught nicking packets of crisps for the third time. “Nearest I ever got to pro football,” he says wistfully. “Excepting right now, of course.”

Niall kisses him.

 

Harry drives him to his doctor’s appointment, and he’s poked and prodded and scanned, and everything’s just, We’ll see, we’ll see, although the doctor seems pleased by his range of motion. Harry reads women’s magazines in the waiting room, chatters at Niall about eyeliner when he comes out. “That’s relevant to your life, I’m sure, mate,” says Niall.

“Dunno,” Harry says. “With my music industry connections, I might decide to become the next Ziggy Stardust.”

“What about me then?”

Harry throws an arm around his shoulders. “You can be a spider from Mars.”

Niall’s got a new brace, and permission to not use his crutches sometimes, and it’s good news all round, so he takes Harry for lunch at Nando’s.

“I want to eat the entire bloody menu,” says Harry, and Niall orders extra chips in preparation for Harry stealing half. “There was a recipe for strawberry tarts in that magazine before the bit with the eyeliner. They looked delicious. I stole it for you.” He holds out a folded magazine page.

“You do love a tart,” says Niall.

“I did marry one,” Harry counters, stealing his punchline.

It’s crowded in the restaurant, but Niall makes an executive decision not to get takeaway. He hasn’t been around strangers in so long, no crowds at matches, no press conferences, no publicity, and it’s weird to be sat in the noise of the world. 

A little boy comes up to them, not older than five and shyly excited, and says, “Excuse me, sir, do you play for Chelsea?” And Niall signs his autograph book and poses so Harry can take a picture. “I hope you feel better soon,” he says before running back to his mum.

“The public loves you,” says Harry, predictably stealing a handful of Niall’s chips.

“Who wouldn’t?” replies Niall magnanimously.

“Ready for the auction next week? Your big return to public life?”

Niall shrugs and takes a bite of garlic bread. “We’ll see, won’t we?” He’s nervous still, even though things with the doctor went well. There are still scans to get back; there are still so many things that could go wrong. If someone asks him whether he’ll be back on the pitch next season, he’ll still have to say he doesn’t know. But he doesn’t tell Harry any of that; he doesn’t think he has to.

 

Louis comes round the following Tuesday while Niall’s trying out the brave new world of walking without a crutch. He’s finally allowed to put weight on his knee again, and although he can’t move fast or all that gracefully, he doesn’t have to cart a chunk of metal around the house. He can even stand in front of the cooker to fry bacon, instead of dragging over a chair.

“Where’d your third leg go?” Louis asks immediately, and Niall gestures at his crotch.

“Still right where you left it last time, mate.”

“Does this mean you’re better?”

“I mean, I was always getting better, that’s the idea. But I can put weight on this leg again, and I get to start the kind of physio that requires standing up.”

“That’s bloody awesome, Niall. Congratulations!” Louis’s eyes drift down, but not to Niall’s leg. “Reckon I was thinking more, like, what it would mean for us, if you can move around a bit more.”

“Nothing adventurous yet,” says Niall, eyeing Louis up and down. He’s in shorts today, and another of the tight t-shirts that drives Niall mad. “But it’s coming. I’ll be able to fuck you any way I like in a few more weeks, I hope.”

“But no bending me over the table just yet?” Louis sounds actually disappointed, and it’s thrilling, somehow, to think he’s considered all the ways Niall could fuck him if he were well.

Niall thinks about the height of his kitchen table, thinks about how much easier standing is now than it had seemed last week. “Would you like that?”

Louis grins. “I’d like it if you would.”

“No, but honestly? Would you like it? Because I’d be up for it if you wanted to try. If you’ve been looking forward to that or something.”

The way Louis cocks his head is better than words, and the little considering lift to his eyebrows makes Niall’s stomach twist. “I want to help you celebrate your continuing recovery. If you can do that by fucking me over a table, so much the better.”

It’s so easy to forget that he’s paying Louis when they’re sat in the kitchen eating pasties and measuring the width of the table with their eyes. Louis chats to him about his best mate from back home, who’s trying to get gigs as a stand-up comedian in between his shifts as a manager at Morrison’s. “He’ll be down in London in a few weeks, and that’s close enough that I’ve got to go see him.”

“Is he any good?” asks Niall.

“Would I be mates with anyone who wasn’t bloody hilarious, do you think?” says Louis.

“Not in a million years.”

When Louis’s wiped the crumbs from his hands onto his shorts and pushed his plate away, he flips a condom from his pocket onto the table and raises his eyebrows. “Want to have a go?”

Niall’s half-hard at the very thought of it, Louis’s slim back moving with his thrusts, the spread of him on the pale, smooth surface of the table. He has so little sex in his own home that he’s never even done this. And it’s so wonderfully obvious how much Louis wants it. 

“I prepped before coming round,” says Louis, almost shy, as he takes down his shorts and the black pants beneath, settling them below the curve of his arse. “I hope that’s all right.”

Niall slips his fingers into the slick of Louis’s crack, touches the smooth rim of his hole, just gently. And there’s nothing put-on about the little noise Louis makes then, the way his fingers grip the edges of the table. When Niall presses into him, he slides in deep and stays for a minute, watching the play of shadows across Louis’s skin as the sun breaks through the clouds outside the window, the steady movement of Louis’s ribs as he breathes. He shifts a bit on his feet, testing the feeling in his knee before he starts fucking Louis for real. And then it’s just good, tight heat surrounding the length of his dick, everything slick and smooth between them. When he comes, it shakes him to his toes, and he has to brace himself on the edge of the table as he bends to nuzzle Louis’s hair.

“Never christened this room of the house,” he admits. Louis’s still lazily wanking beneath the edge of the table as Niall pulls out, replacing his dick with his fingers to fuck Louis through his orgasm.

Louis straightens up after, stretches all the way up onto his tip-toes. “If this is too personal, tell me to fuck off, but _why not_?”

“Told you I haven’t hired anyone to come to my house before. And I don’t exactly let in the general public.”

“Do you let in anyone?” Louis pulls his shorts up but doesn’t button them, leaving a tantalizing glimpse of black cotton in the gap.

Niall shouldn’t be taken aback by the question; it’s the most obvious one to ask, under the circumstances, and Louis’s hardly lacking the context to know that. But he still waffles a moment uncertainly before he replies, “Think I let in about as many people as I need to keep me happy.”

Louis cocks his head, a brewing argument in the lift of his eyebrows, but then he drops it. “Long as you’re happy, Niall. No one can tell you how to live your life if you’re happy as is.”

Niall’s knee has hurt so much sometimes lately that he doesn’t consider whether he’s happy. “Got plenty of good mates. Good family. I’m fucking lucky. I don’t need to, like, drag some poor bloke into all of this just so my kitchen table doesn’t get lonely.”

“Not really your kitchen table I was thinking of, love.” He tugs at Niall’s shorts, pulling them up and patting Niall’s belly. “And I don’t reckon you’d really need to do much dragging. When you’re fit and you’ve got a giant house and a spot on a premier league team, I bet they’d come to you.”

Niall pulls a face. “Don’t want them coming round for any of that though, do I? That’s just, like, trappings. It could go away any time.” He slumps back into a chair, bends his knee because he’s still afraid of hyperextending it if he stands for too long. “Want to be with people who like me, you know? Not any of the rest.”

Louis touches his cheek, bops him on the nose. His smile is soft. “You’re really quite likeable.”

It makes something wobble in Niall’s belly, warm and dangerous. “Come to bed,” he says, leaning to kiss just above the waist of Louis’s unbuttoned shorts, reminding himself firmly that this is what Louis’s here for, nothing more, nothing less. Louis follows him with a grin.

 

The charity auction in the morning is going to be preceded by a press conference and followed by an exhibition match between a couple of youth teams. Niall’s got his kit with the Children in Crisis logo on by eight AM, and he’s sort of pottering about in the kitchen waiting for Harry to get him, feeling jittery and eager thinking about being back at Stamford Bridge, even if he’s not going out to play. When Harry rings, he heads for the door as he answers, “Just heading out now, mate. See you in a sec.”

Harry’s voice is watery and hoarse. “No, Niall, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m not there. Nick’s been in A and E all night, and I totally forgot.”

Niall freezes. “Is he all right? Are you all right?”

Harry laughs. “We’re fine. He’ll be fine. He’s an idiot. I’m also an idiot. He’s got appendicitis, and he let it go so long that he’s having emergency surgery. It’s pretty routine, but you know. I should have called earlier, Niall. I’m so sorry.”

“Not at all, mate. You’re where you’re needed. Tell Nick I’m sorry.”

“Soon as he’s not under general anaesthesia, I’ll let him know.” Harry’s trying to make it sound light, but his voice wavers.

“Do you need me to come there?”

Harry laughs. “No. God. No. I just need you to get to London and consider not sacking me for this.”

“Done. I’ll be fine. You’ll get some hazard pay for your hours in A and E, if you like.”

“That’s stupid. Just please get yourself to London. Unless you need me to get you a taxi? Fuck, I should have just done that. I’m not thinking.”

“I can get my own taxi, Harry. Go be with your husband. I love you.”

“Love you too. I’ll phone later.”

Niall isn’t panicked yet. He’s got plenty of time still, and it’s not as though he hasn’t used cabs and car services before. But the thing about car services is they want bookings in advance, and although he calls the two local cab companies, they tell him it’ll be at least 45 minutes before they can get him a cab. He swears, pacing in the hallway until his knee starts to throb and he has to sit. Finally he calls the only other person he can think of nearby, apologising repeatedly. Louis is at his door in 15 minutes.

“Can we use your car?” Louis says. “I promise I won’t wreck it, but mine is, uh, a bit of a mess.”

Niall’s car has been pretty much just sat in the garage for the past couple of months, except for Harry taking it for errands to keep the battery fresh. He chucks his keys at Louis and says, “I trust you.”

“I’ve got a driving licence, honestly. I mean, what’s a few points between friends, right?”

Niall rolls his eyes. “Shut up and drive, all right, Lou?”

There’s traffic on the motorway, and even though Niall and Harry’s plan had allowed plenty of time for it, he’s still nervous, shifting in the passenger seat as Louis drives. Louis’s wearing nice trousers and an oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He looks respectable, cool, with his hair styled away from his face and a pair of aviators perched on his nose. “Are you sure you weren’t busy today?” Niall asks.

“Nothing I couldn’t swap around,” Louis replies. “You sounded desperate.”

“Fuck,” says Niall. “I’m sorry, mate. I really didn’t mean to screw up your day.”

“You’re all right. Really. It’s no trouble. I’ll rub elbows with some footballers. It’ll be great. Just glad I wasn’t sat around in me pants when you rang.”

“Thank you. I can’t say it enough. I’ll make sure you get a photo with anyone you like.”

“Quite fancy that Neil Horan. He’s well fit.” Niall grins and ducks his head.

Louis flicks on the radio, and Niall bites his lip, thinking of Harry. The song ends and the DJ says, “This is Sara Cox, in for our dear Nick Grimshaw, who is in hospital with appendicitis. We wish the very best for a speedy recovery, especially as I’m still trying to remember what all these buttons do.” She puts on another record almost immediately.

Louis’s eyes narrow. “Your assistant’s husband is the host of the Radio 1 Breakfast show?” he says incredulously.

“You think there couldn’t be more than one person called Nick with appendicitis in London?” Niall grins. “Yeah, that’s Harry’s Nick. You’d like him, I reckon.”

“He does well enough on the radio. Just didn’t realise what sort of crowd you ran with.”

Niall laughs. “Not running with any crowd at all just now. But they’re good lads.”

“They’d have to be. I like this song.” He turns up the new Bastille track and taps his fingers on the steering wheel in time with the chorus. Niall watches him a bit, trying to be unobtrusive, so pleased by the curve of Louis’s little smile, the relaxed lines of his body behind the wheel.

“Thanks,” he says again. “You’re a fucking lifesaver.”

“No trouble, mate. Just tell me a bit about what to expect when we get there.”

“Ha, well, reckon I don’t know much meself. I just go where they tell me, so pretty much someone else points in a direction and there I am. But there’s a press conference first, and then the auction bit, and then some stuff with kids.” He sounds like an idiot, and he wishes he’d got a proper itinerary off Harry, who’s the primary person who tells him where he’s supposed to be, or looks charmingly confused for him when it’s not clear. “We’ll figure it out.”

“I can just, like, amuse myself in London, come round and pick you up after.”

It’s slowly dawning on Niall that he’s basically signed Louis on for a whole day when he could surely get a cab home from fucking _London_ if he needed. “You know, you don’t have to stay. I’ll be alright to get home.”

“No, mate, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m happy to spend the day. But if you wanted me out of your hair while you’re doing football things, that’d be fine.”

“You like football things.”

“So I do.”

“Then come. Meet the lads. Have a gander at the grounds. Have a kick around with some kids.”

Louis smiles at that, his eyes going crinkly at the corners before he turns serious again. They’re getting close now, into the hardest snarl of London traffic, and he’s keeping his eyes firmly on the road. “How’d you like me to introduce myself?”

Niall’s stomach twists up, and he tucks his hands between his legs so they don’t shake. The question works him up so fast he feels blindsided, fidgety with the same feeling he had before the barbecue, but worse. The more he knows Louis, the worse it is. “You’re my mate Louis. You live by me, so you gave me a lift. You can even tell them you’re a Donnie Rovers supporter. They might laugh though.”

Louis shoves at Niall’s shoulder as they stop at a red light. “You still supporting Derby then?”

“Fair enough.” He likes making Louis laugh, likes it so much it seems to fill up his whole chest.

“Is there parking?” Louis asks, when they’re finally getting close, quarter to and cutting it fine enough that Niall’s starting to bounce his knee in concern. “Special players carpark?” 

Niall points him where to go, waves at the parking attendant and yells that he’ll be back for a chat later. They’re so nearly late that Niall doesn’t have much time to think about how weird it is to be back after months away. Back and not even to play yet. He rubs his knee as Louis pulls into a spot in the carpark.

“All right, mate? Do you need a minute?”

“Haven’t got a minute.” He grabs his bag and opens the car door. Louis touches his elbow.

“Kiss for luck?”

Niall can feel himself going pink, but he leans in, presses his lips to Louis’s just long enough to know he wants more. Then he gets out of the car before he can start.

 

It turns out it’s completely fine that he’s late, since half the team is too, milling about outside the door to the press room. Louis seems small in this crowd, although he lights up over everyone Niall introduces him to, dishes out thoughtful compliments on last season’s performance, generally charms his way through so that Niall feels just fine leaving him to go sit at a table and answer questions about his knee and the fine work of Children in Crisis. The other lads are all answering questions about training and the upcoming season, and Niall hates staying mum on those, hates not being a part of it. But he smiles anyway, keeps his chin up, and in forty-five minutes, all the reporters are filing out, and they’re being herded off for the lunch that precedes the auction. There’s a buffet, and Louis makes a point of nudging Niall and saying, “Like lunches at yours better.” That’s before he’s noticed the fondue, to be fair, but Niall’s still awfully pleased. 

It’s a new crowd now, rich people dressed down to their laddiest, eyeing up the items along the walls, chatting to each other and the players. At one point, Louis ducks off to the loo and comes back weaving through the thickest knots of the crowd, his eyes following someone Niall can’t see. He realises Louis must have another client here, someone who wouldn’t want to see him, and Niall doesn’t like the tightness in his chest at the thought. Louis serves a posh clientele, exactly the sort of people who are going to pay a thousand quid for a pair of signed football boots. It shouldn’t be a total surprise.

While everyone’s still milling about, Harry comes skidding in, looking knackered and slightly insane. Niall had texted to say he was all right for getting there, but he reckons Harry had to see for himself. He pulls Harry into a tight hug, asks, “How’s Nick?” just as Harry’s saying, “Did you get a cab?”

“Answer mine first,” says Niall. “How’d the surgery go?”

“Fine,” says Harry. “Totally normal. He’s going to be sleeping it off for a bit still, but I reckon that’s good for him. How’d you get here?”

“Got a lift.” He nods towards Louis, who’s weaving back their way holding a couple of glasses of wine.

Harry’s eyes widen. “Isn’t that…”

“For right now, that’s my mate Louis who was kind enough to drive me.”

Louis hands Niall a glass, and Niall makes introductions, Harry smiling his biggest smile, dimples full-force. “It’s really good to meet you, mate. Niall’s said great things.”

Louis laughs a bit at that. “About you too. Sorry about your husband though.”

“He’ll get to lie in bed and whine and be waited on,” says Harry. “I’ve only got so much sympathy.”

Louis dips his head, cuts his eyes sideways over Niall’s shoulder. “Do you need to get out of here for a bit?” Niall asks. “Haz, you want to take him out to the pitch for a minute before you go?”

Louis looks grateful and sheepish, and Harry looks like he hasn’t quite cottoned on, but he doesn’t seem to mind it. As long as nothing gets broken, it’s probably all right.

 

Niall’s good at banter, and there are plenty of people around who want to see how he’s doing after a couple of months of house arrest. He’s sort of wishing for a wingman by the time everyone’s sat down for the auction; endless questions about when he’s going to start training again are wearing him down. Louis reappears just as bidding starts on a batch of memorabilia, slips into the empty seat beside Niall with a gentle nudge of his elbow.

“Did Harry go?” Niall whispers.

Louis nods. “Off to get some stuff to take to the hospital. Sounds like old Grimmy’s prone to boredom. I miss anything good?”

“Nah, mate, nothing yet. Although I almost bought you a giant cuddly Stamford the Lion.”

“Bugger. I always thought they saved the good stuff for the end at these things.”

Niall nearly laughs, has to stifle himself behind his hand as Louis grins. He tries to keep his attention on the auction, but it’s obvious they’d both rather be up and about, and it’s a relief when the last item—a football-themed holiday including tickets to a Champions League match—has been sold. “Next up is the kids,” Niall tells Louis.

They’ve set up the pitch for the Chelsea Academy team to play their exhibition match, and there are younger kids running about off sides, practising drills and gawking at the pros in their midst. Plenty of them come up to Niall to ask for pictures and autographs, and Louis fields them all like it’s his job, snapping their photos and chatting to them. One of them asks who he is, and he says, “Oh, I’m Niall’s bodyguard. Got to make sure nothing else happens to that knee of his, right?” Niall feels overwhelmingly fond, certainly can’t shake it off as he watches Louis with more and more kids, easy and funny and charming.

“Did you ever think of being a teacher?” Niall asks as the Academy teams take the field for their match.

Louis looks sceptically at him. “That’s hardly a good fit with my current line of work.”

“But you were great with those kids. You obviously know how to talk to them.”

Louis ducks his head, sheepish smile at the ready. “Oh, look, they’re about to start some sort of game out there,” he says, nodding toward the pitch. “Let’s watch.” But all throughout the match, Niall finds himself watching Louis more than the match. He only picks up that the Chelsea side’s winning by the cheering from the stands.

Everyone starts to clear out after the match, and Niall has loads of people to say goodbye too, promising he’ll be back to training as soon as he can. Liam asks if he wants to go for dinner and catch up, but Niall feels worn thin and he can’t really expect to keep Louis away from home any longer. “Soon, though, mate, all right?” he says. “Come to mine if you like.”

Liam gives him a crinkly smile and a pat on the back. “Don’t be a stranger now, mate.”

Louis nudges an elbow into his side a few minutes later. “Ready to head home?” he asks. Niall’s looking round, a bit dazed, calculating if there’s anyone who’ll be really hurt if he doesn’t speak to them. He decides there probably isn’t.

He follows Louis out to the carpark, and the silence is lovely and familiar. He’s not used to this sort of frantic bustle anymore. He exchanges a few words with the attendant, leaning over Louis to chat through the window. “You do know literally everyone who works here, don’t you?” says Louis, as they make their way through London, rush hour starting to clog up the roads.

“Nah, sure they’ve hired some new ones while I’ve been gone,” Niall replies.

“New friends to make when you’re back then, I suppose.”

Niall rubs a hand over his knee. It had barely hurt today, but then he’d hardly asked anything rigorous of it.

“Do you not like me saying that?” Louis asks, glancing at Niall’s knee. “About you being back?”

Niall shrugs uncomfortably. “Dunno. Reckon it’s all right. But it’s not for sure yet. I’ve got ages left of physio, even if I get the go-ahead to start up training again. And it’s been a while now. May be hard to get back up to speed.”

“I believe in you. You’ll never let anything stop you from getting back on the pitch and befriending every man, woman, and lion who’s ever worked at Stamford Bridge.”

“Hope so,” says Niall. He looks out at the city around them, tall buildings they wind between, Louis driving like he’s done this before, like he knows every inch of London even if he doesn’t live here. Niall realises Louis probably comes to London for clients, and he has to shake off the vague dissatisfied feeling that tugs at him. “Do you want to stop for something to eat?” Niall asks. “I know it’s early.”

Louis glances at the clock on the dash, frowns thinly. “I’d like to, mate, I really would. But I need to get back. I’ve got an appointment tonight.”

“An appointment,” Niall repeats. It’s actually painful, looking at Louis’s face and knowing there’s nothing less than awkward he can say. “Sorry, mate. You didn’t say. I didn’t mean to keep you from something.”

“You’re not though. We’ll be back in plenty of time. Just not sure it’s enough time for dinner as well, with this traffic. Maybe though, if it’s not too bad.”

“Nah, you’re all right. You shouldn’t have to be out like this all day, and then at night as well.”

“It’s not the same,” says Louis quietly, and Niall lets that sit for a while, puts on his sunglasses and tips his head back against the seat.

“How much do I owe you for today?” he asks finally. “That was at least eight hours, more with this drive as well.”

Louis lifts his eyebrows like Niall’s crazy. “Are you joking? I don’t expect you to pay me for this. This isn’t my job. It’s just. I dunno. It’s just something I’d do for a friend.”

“If we fuck in the backseat, then is it your job again?”

Louis flinches, and his nostrils flare like he has to hold himself back from snapping. “I’d rather we didn’t.”

Niall realises how crass he sounded, thinks how many times Louis must have heard proposals like that from men who actually meant it and shakes his head. “Fuck, sorry. That wasn’t right. But you really don’t want me to pay you for today? At all?”

“Rather you didn’t.” He sounds tired suddenly, small. “You said you wished I could’ve come to your barbecue, as your friend. Just think of it like that.”

“Thank you,” says Niall. “This is pretty fucking generous, as my friend, driving all this way for me, hanging round all day like that.”

Louis’s smile creeps back into place. “I had a good time. Reckon I’d do it again, if you needed.”

Niall shuts his eyes behind his sunglasses, breathes that in and doesn’t know what to do with it, what to do with this perfect guy driving his car and making him laugh and charming his teammates, the same one who has to go off and fuck another man tonight. “Noted,” he says. “Thanks.”

“No trouble,” says Louis, but that’s the biggest possible lie. Everything is trouble now, settled deep and aching in Niall’s chest.

 

When Louis comes round the next week, Niall is still buzzing with endorphins from the hardest workout he’s done on his own to date. He forgets to be awkward or hesitant until Louis’s already in the door, and by then he just has to carry on.

“What’s got you all sweaty and excited today?” Louis asks brightly. “Haven’t got started without me, have you?”

“Just been working out, trying to get my strength back. Should’ve showered, but there wasn’t time.”

Louis looks him up and down, taking in his loose vest and basketball shorts, the slick sheen of his skin. “Reckon a sponge bath wouldn’t be outside my job description.”

“Or you could just come shower with me, make sure I wash behind my ears.”

Louis strokes the shell of his ear, tickles back into his sweaty hair. “Not a bath? I’ve seen your bathtub. It’s very large.” He winks dramatically.

Niall hesitates. It’s been so good being up and about on his own two feet now he can be, but the thought of a nice, hot soak with Louis has its appeal. And his bathtub is bloody enormous. “Come on then.”

Niall can practically feel Louis’s eyes on him as they walk through the house. Niall isn’t strong yet, strong enough to run or kick or do flying leaps into the arms of his teammates. But he’s walking around without his crutches and with only a light brace supporting his knee, and he hopes Louis’s proud of him.

Louis runs a bath, strips down and settles in without a backwards glance. Niall wonders how long he’s been waiting for a chance at the tub. Niall flings off his vest, shoves down his shorts, and then all that’s left is the brace. “Don’t suppose that’s much good in water, is it?” says Louis, splashing a bit and grinning.

Niall opens the Velcro on the brace, feeling a bit raw, unexpectedly. He’s had it off a few times in the last few days, to shower and everything, but mostly no one’s had to see the scarring around his knee, the spot where they cut him open to make things right. It feels more naked than being naked, and he can see Louis looking as he slips into the tub.

“Do you mind that you’re basically simmering in a pool of me sweat right now?” Niall says cheerfully, settling back against Louis’s chest.

Louis kisses the side of his neck. “Reckon it’s more clean water than sweat. Even you can’t get that dirty.” He tickles down Niall’s sides, and Niall squirms a bit but doesn’t pull away. He can feel Louis’s dick snugged up against the bottom of his spine, and he thinks about asking Louis to fuck him, but they’d have to get out of the bath, and just now he’s of a mind to squander his whole appointment soaking in Louis’s arms.

“How much do you charge for a whole night?” he asks, as Louis’s hands come up to rub at his shoulders.

Louis pauses. “Are you asking for yourself or for a friend?”

“What do you think?” Niall replies. He hates the idea of someone he knows touching Louis, even more than he’s coming to hate the idea of a stranger doing it.

“Would you make me dinner?” Louis asks.

“’Course. Whatever you like.”

“Reckon I’d just charge you the regular rate then. You pay the rest in roast chicken and some sort of fancy pudding.”

Niall rolls his head back onto Louis’s shoulder, twists around trying to make eye contact. “That’s not right, is it, though? That’s loads of your time. And I know you have other clients.”

Louis sighs. “Niall, I’m an independent businessman conducting my business. If I want to be paid in puff pastry, who the hell are you to argue?” He makes it light, but it’s not, at the heart of it, and Niall hears the strain in his voice.

He tips his head forward to let Louis at his shoulders again, small, strong hands working into muscles stinging from his workout.

“Were you asking me to stay?” Louis asks finally.

Niall shakes his head. “Just exploring possibilities.”

“Of course.” They’re quiet then, and Niall relaxes into Louis’s touch because it’s easier than saying any of the things aching in his chest. He doesn’t know how to do this, he realizes. He doesn’t know how to see someone again and again and have it be just business. Not Laura, who’s coming round with her boyfriend for dinner on Friday. Certainly not Harry. And Louis’s not making it any easier to maintain any sort of professional boundaries.

“Can you get about more with your knee now?” Louis asks. “Reckon that must nice.” He’s pulling his thumbs in long sweeps out from Niall’s spine, following the curve of his ribs.

“A bit, yeah. Still don’t like going out much. Too many people, and they all ask when I’ll be back. Still don’t know when I’ll be back.” He looks down at his knee beneath the water, bent up a bit almost like normal. He can see the scar though, wet and wobbly, and he’s still scared as shit of not playing again.

“Does it help if I say I believe in you? Or do you just want to punch me? Because I’m a bit vulnerable to punches at the moment, so I’d like to avoid that.”

“You’re all right,” says Niall. “Thanks, mate.”

Later on, Louis wanks him with a soapy, slippery hand, rubs one slick finger over Niall’s arsehole, dipping it into him as he comes. He lets Niall sag back against him after, rubbing his hands along the insides of Niall’s trembling thighs. The water’s going cold, and Niall’s fingertips are wrinkled as he drags Louis forward into a kiss. “Reckon we might rinse off and go to bed?” Niall says against Louis’s parted lips. “Dunno what time it is.”

Louis kisses him deeply again. “Don’t worry about it, mate,” he says. “We’re fine on time.”

“Not if you’re expecting puff pastry later. I don’t have anything in.”

“I always accept rain checks for puff pastry.”

Niall pulls himself up on the edge of the tub. “I don’t think I understand how you run a business at all.”

They rinse off in the shower, Louis’s hands gentle on Niall’s waist. Back in his bed, Niall gives Louis a slow, messy blowjob, both of them still damp. Louis whimpers and bucks into his mouth until Niall has to hold his hips tight to the bed. “Is that all right?” he asks, realising how deeply his fingers dig into Louis’s flesh.

“Yeah,” Louis breathes. “Just don’t stop.”

Niall sucks just the head of Louis’s dripping cock back into his mouth, tonguing at the slit again and again for the hysterical noise Louis makes when he does, the way he goes stiff with the desire to move. “Are you ready to come for me, babe?” Niall whispers.

“Ready,” Louis agrees shakily. “So fucking ready.”

Niall takes him in deep again, the head of Louis’s cock hitting the back of his throat as Niall swallows. He lets go of Louis’s hips, rings the fingers of one hand around the base of Louis’s cock and uses the other to tease at Louis’s trembling arsehole. Louis thrusts forward, crying out as he comes. Niall swallows greedily, holding Louis’s cock for his mouth and lapping up every last drop. Louis strokes his hair with shaking fingers, swearing quietly as he starts to go soft in Niall’s mouth.

Niall lets him go, licking his lips and looking up at Louis’s flushed face. Louis traces over the hinge of Niall’s jaw, then across his lower lip, lingering there. “You give such fantastic head,” Louis says softly.

“Thanks,” says Niall.

He hauls himself up the bed, nearly forgets about his knee as he slides one leg over Louis’s. He’s still got his brace off, and Louis touches his thigh just above the scar. Niall expects him to say something, but he doesn’t, fingers curling gently around Niall’s leg.

He doesn’t think he’s falling asleep until he startles awake, finding Louis just where he left him. The clock on the bedside table says it’s nearly five o’clock, and Niall looks up with a start to find Louis watching him. “What are you doing?” Niall asks. “You should be long gone by now.”

Louis shrugs. “I haven’t got another appointment tonight, and you were dead asleep. Didn’t seem fair to run out.”

Niall’s still waking up, stretching his legs out slowly. “Did you want to stay for dinner? I mean, you’d be welcome. I haven’t got anything special on, like I said, but since I didn’t feed you lunch, it seems only fair.”

“You shouldn’t do it because it seems fair. None of my other clients have ever made me anything beyond a cup of tea. You’re already doing more than is fair.”

“I like it though. I like cooking for you.” Niall’s on the verge of giving too much away, he can feel it. It seems almost inevitable at this point, like there’s so much rolling around in his head whenever he looks at Louis that some of it is bound to come out.

Louis’s just looking at him, and his smile is so soft that for a heady moment Niall wonders if it might all be all right. But that’s a naïve fantasy talking. Even if Louis stays, it doesn’t change anything. “Reckon I could hang around then. Get in your hair while you cook. I can be a right nuisance in the kitchen.”

“Oh, I bet,” laughs Niall. He pulls Louis into a kiss, wonders belatedly who Louis is to him in this time he’s not paying for.

Niall throws together pasta and a quick cream sauce with lots of veg in. “Growing boys need vitamins,” says Niall, and Louis tucks a large spinach leaf behind his ear like a flower, fingers tickling over Niall’s scalp.

Mainly Louis chops things, which is perfect, and boggles over Niall’s various kitchen appliances. “You cannot fucking tell me you don’t have a blender,” says Niall.

Louis shrugs, keeps watching Niall with the blender. “Dunno, mate,” he says. “I haven’t really needed to make me own margaritas, and whatever you’re doing is probably some sort of new-fangled witchcraft, so I don’t need that either.”

“Do you cook at all?” Niall asks. He’s not really shocked, although he keeps up pretending like he is because Louis seems to like the tease of it.

“I used to make breakfasts for my sisters. I fry a great egg and I hardly ever burn toast.”

“Good to have round in the morning then.” He and Louis share a look. “Noted.”

Louis takes over at the cooker, stirring the sauce and sneaking a too-hot taste, sucking at his scalded lower lip. “Bloody hell.”

“Basic danger of cooking,” says Niall. He cups Louis’s jaw and brings their mouths gently together. “A kiss will help.”

Louis shuts his eyes and leans into it. “Medical science,” he says, grinning into Niall’s mouth. Niall starts to pull away, but Louis yanks him back by a handful of t-shirt. “No, it’s terribly painful. I need your help.”

The sauce is going to burn, and Niall reaches out a hand to keep stirring, his fingers folding around Louis’s. His heart is beating too fast, and he wants this so much, Louis kissing him in his kitchen, wobbling on his toes so they’re of a height. He wants it every night of the week, wants to do it until it becomes a habit, until he forgets the franticness he feels right now.

Finally he forces himself to pull away. “Need a wee. Don’t burn anything.” Louis squawks in protest, but Niall calls, “You’ll be all right.”

He shuts himself in the toilet in the hall, takes a few deep breaths in front of the mirror. He’s flushed and suddenly heartsick. Louis is barefoot in a pair of Niall’s trackies in his kitchen, taking up an empty space Niall never would have thought was there. He knows exactly what Harry would say, and he’s very glad Harry’s never been the “I told you so” type because he has a right to it right now.

Niall splashes cold water on his face and goes back out, finds Louis looking much more competent with the whisk. “It hasn’t gone to shit yet,” he says. “But the water’s boiling.”

Niall dumps the pasta into the pot. “Just a few minutes now.”

“Want me to set the table? We’ll eat this like civilized people, yeah?”

“Definitely.” Louis finds plates and cutlery without any guidance, sets them out on the kitchen table. Niall thinks about bending him over it the other week, and he wonders if Louis’s thinking of that too. He drains the pasta, then mixes it in with the sauce. 

The whole room is filled with the smell of it, creamy and warm. It’s not much of a summer meal, but it’s been grey and cool today, and he feels as though they both deserve it. He tries not to stare at Louis licking sauce from his lips as they eat.

“Do you want to stay?” Niall asks after they’ve finished, as he’s loading things into the dishwasher.

“Do you want me to?” Louis replies, which isn’t an answer at all.

Niall shrugs. It’s both the best and worst thing he can imagine. “Whatever you like.”

“Reckon I’ll go then.” He hesitates. “You can ask me to stay though, you know. If you want me to stay, you can ask.” He’s so hard to read, and Niall hates it, hates not being sure how Louis feels, if all his tenderness is reciprocated.

“If you want to stay, you can ask too,” Niall points out. “I’d be happy to have you ask.”

Louis nods, but he doesn’t say anything, just kisses Niall’s cheek and pulls away. Niall sets the dishwasher running and stands by awkwardly.

“Did you want anything else?” Niall asks. “Cup of tea? Brandy and cigars in the lounge?”

“I’ll never turn down a cup of tea.”

Niall makes a pot and sets it on the table between them, and they take a long time drinking it in silence, like they’re waiting each other out. Finally Niall thunks down his half-empty cup, takes a deep breath, and says, “I’d like it if you stayed. I’d be really happy if you stayed.”

“Reckon I’ll stay then, won’t I?” says Louis. 

Niall tries not to think too hard that night, but he can’t help but recognize how nice it is to fall asleep with Louis’s head burrowed into his collarbone, how nice it is to kiss him in the morning, how much more there is to it than sex.

“See you next week,” Niall says at the door.

“Looking forward to it, love.”

 

“Fuck me,” Niall tells him, and Louis looks up from his sprawl between Niall’s legs. He’s been blowing Niall lazily for ages, bringing Niall close to the edge and then letting Niall tug his hair to pull him off. There’s a spit-wet fingertip worked into his arse, and it’s been fucking ages since he had more than that. He’s felt so vulnerable already, hobbling on his crutches and depending on other people all the time, but right now all he can think is how much he wants to let go and let Louis take him apart.

“Was that an invitation?” Louis asks, his voice rough and low.

“Closer to an order.” Niall rocks his hips onto Louis’s finger, lets Louis press it into him slow and too dry. It burns, but fuck, he’s missed this.  
Louis gropes over the side of the bed for lube, fishes a condom out of Niall’s bedside table while Niall squirms. He goes easy for Louis’s first lubed finger, letting it slick him straight to his center, gives a satisfied little hum as Louis twirls it inside him. 

“Tell me how you like it, love,” Louis says. “Need to look out for your knee, I reckon.”

Niall wants to lie back and watch Louis fucking him, kiss Louis while he’s opened up on his cock. But it’s painful to bend his knees that high, and he knows he shouldn’t. “Maybe spooning,” he suggests instead. “That all right?”

“Suits me fine.” Louis sinks his finger in deep, teases Niall with one until he has to beg for more. After that Niall doesn’t have to tell Louis how he likes it all, really, because Louis’s drinking in every moan and wriggle and adjusting accordingly, until Niall is limp and lost for words. Then Louis rolls him onto his side, careful around his knee, and curls into the space at Niall’s back like he was always meant to go there.

Louis’s cock is a thicker, blunter push, and it aches the whole way in, the stretch of that first deep thrust. Niall feels owned by it, everything other sensation paling beside the sudden pleasure of Louis inside him. “Relax a bit for me, babe,” Louis says, mouthing at the side of Niall’s neck. “Let me take care of you.”

Niall takes a deep, shuddery breath, and he feels like he’s melting as Louis smoothes more lube around his hole, rocks forward against Niall’s arse. There’s no rhythm to it yet, the slow rolling of Louis’s hips, but it builds after that, so slowly that Niall hardly feels his orgasm creeping up on him until he’s nearly there and Louis is fucking him with deep, steady strokes. When he comes, Louis is right there with him, kissing his jaw, his shoulder, the corner of his mouth. It’s sweet, is the thing; it’s almost unbearably lovely.

Louis pulls out slowly, ties off the condom before chucking it, and he's gone just long enough for Niall to miss the weight of him against his back. Then Louis's settling in again, curling an arm around Niall's waist and nuzzling his ear. His fingers skate through the sticky patch of come on Niall's belly. "Want to clean up a bit?"

Niall shakes his head. "Stay," he says, but it comes out oddly choked, like his throat is closing up with unwanted tenderness. He's already thinking of tomorrow morning, of Louis kissing him at the door and going back to a life Niall has no part in. Louis's already doing far more than he's paid for, and Niall doesn't think it can possibly be enough.

Louis kisses his cheek. "All right, love?"

Niall shuts his eyes, makes himself tell the truth. "Not sure I can do this anymore, Lou."

Louis scoots back and leans up on an elbow. "Do you need to move? Is your knee hurting?" he asks, but his expression is already shifting as he sees Niall's face. "Ah. Not your knee then."

Niall rolls onto his back. "I feel as though I'm taking advantage. I'm always asking you to stay too long. I'm not paying you what you're worth. Reckon I can't pay what you're worth. But I'm not even paying market rate."

Louis’s quiet for a long time, minutes stretching out to feel like hours. His face is unreadable, and Niall goes still, waiting for whatever he’s going to say. “Look,” says Louis finally. “All right. What if I just came round, and you didn’t pay me? Like, what if I just came round because I wanted to?”

Niall doesn’t know what to make of that. “Why would you do that?”

Louis fidgets with the duvet instead of answering, pinching the edge of it between his fingers. “Just because I want to. Just because you’re lovely, and I don’t, you know. I reckon I don’t need your money to tell you that.”

It’s so much to take in, and Louis won’t even meet his eyes now. This can’t be right. It can’t be. Niall can’t afford this hope right now. “I don’t understand,” he says helplessly.

Louis takes his hand, folds their fingers gently together. “I don’t do this, honestly. I don’t know how. So I’m probably going to royally fuck it up. But I like being here, I like being with you, and I reckon I’d like it even if I weren’t getting paid at all. So maybe I feel a bit like you feel. A bit like I’m taking advantage.”

“I hired you though. I hired you for just this. I can’t ask you to…”

“You’re not asking, love. I’m offering.” He brings Niall’s hand to his lips, presses a kiss to his knuckles. “It doesn’t seem right that you’d pay for all these other things. Pay for letting me muck about in your kitchen and sleep in your bed and act like your mate.”

“But what would I do instead?”

“You could just be with me. You could be my mate for real.”

Niall bites his lip, watches Louis watching him do it. “Mates isn’t all I want though, if I’m honest. I have mates, I have loads of mates. I’d be fucking honoured for you to be one of them. But not like you. I don’t fuck them. I don’t feel like my heart might burst when I look at them. I’m not.” He’s about to say “in love with them,” but the look on Louis’s face is sheer panic, so he stops, lets the words hang unspoken. Even though he is, is the sad truth.

“You can’t do that,” Louis says, tugging his hand out of Niall’s and smacking his wrist. “Jesus fucking Christ, Niall. You can’t just say that. I’m not. Fuck.” He brings his knees up tight to his chest, walling himself off like a kid. “I’m still a prostitute. I still fuck people for money, and I’ll still be doing that even if I’m not fucking you for money.”

“I know that,” says Niall. “Obviously I know that.”

“It’s just not exactly a thing you can brush off, if you want to keep fucking me, if you want me to not just be your mate. Guys generally don’t handle it well, I’ve learnt.”

Niall can’t promise him anything. He doesn’t feel good about that, but it’s the honest truth. He doesn’t know how to do this, how to be with someone, and especially not someone like Louis, whose job is to not get attached. He can’t say he won’t get jealous or scared, and he can’t be a good partner for anyone.

Louis must take Niall’s silence for the prelude to a “no” because he rushes on before Niall can put together a proper response. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth a try though.” 

Niall shakes his head, trying to clear it, but his thoughts are so jumbled up. He’s not a person who has relationships. He’s already far outside his comfort zone. “Maybe. I don’t mean, I don’t know, mate, I don’t know what I mean. Is it easier if things just stay as they are? Forget I said anything?”

“No,” says Louis sharply. “Dunno if you’ve noticed, love, but I’m breaking my own rules all over the place for you. I’m not supposed to stay just because I like you, and I’m not supposed to drive you all over creation, and I’m not supposed to think about you when I’m not here. But I bloody well do now.” He sounds angry, eyes blazing, voice gone taut with tension.

“I’m sorry,” offers Niall. “I didn’t mean for it to be like this.”

“Neither did I.”

“We can be mates then, if you like. I’ll get you tickets to my matches once I start playing again, and you can come round for dinner sometimes, and we’ll just go on like that.” It might kill him, honestly, trying to do that, but he would.

Louis stares at him for a moment before he breaks into a grin. “That’s the first time you’ve mentioned playing again without acting like it’s not going to happen.”

“Surely that’s not all you got from that, Lou?” says Niall.

“No. It’s nice though, hearing you talk like that. It’s nice to think you might believe it.”

“That’s a bit rich coming from a bloke who genuinely thinks he can’t do anything but sell his arse to footballers.” It’s too sharp, not even a little bit funny.

Louis folds up even tighter, rests his head on his knee. “Fuck,” he says feelingly. “Fuck, Niall.” Niall can’t see his face, reaches out to graze Louis’s ankle with his fingertips. Louis flinches away, pushes back on the bed like he can’t get enough distance.

Niall sits up, leaves his hand out in an invitation. “Louis.”

“Reckon I should go,” says Louis. “I hope it’s all right if we cancel on next week. I’ve got plenty of other footballer fucking to do.” Louis rolls off the side of the bed, stands there looking wounded for a moment before he starts to gather his clothes.

He’s got a massive speed advantage, Niall at his most vulnerable with his brace off. He calls after Louis as he slips out of the bedroom, fumbling his brace back on, reaching out for his pants. “Fucking hell, Louis. Just wait.” But the front door is already slamming by the time he’s made it to the hall, and he can see Louis in the drive, holding his shoes in his hand because Niall’s made him that fucking desperate to leave. 

He watches Louis duck into the street, and there’s no way he can go out now without making a scene. He presses his forehead to the window beside the door, plays the whole scene back, realising too late what he’s said. Maybe there’s no other way it could end.

 

Niall wallows for 24 hours, and then he rings Harry. “Are you doing anything this afternoon?” he asks.

“Bit of shopping,” Harry replies. “Nothing exciting. Did you need something?”

“Just a mate,” Niall tells him, getting stupidly choked up just thinking about trying to explain. “If you have some time to come round.”

“Are you all right? Did something happen with the knee?”

Niall touches his brace. He’d done all his exercises this morning, going through the motions, and he should be pleased with his own progress, but he can’t feel it. “Not the knee.”

“Right,” says Harry, twigging like Niall knew he would. “Not the knee. I’ll be there in an hour. I’ll bring some ice cream.”

“Thanks, mate,” says Niall. “You’re the best.”

When Harry arrives fifty minutes later, he’s brought three flavours of ice cream, a copy of _Titanic_ on DVD, and two boxes of tissues. “Do you think we’ll be either crying or wanking enough to need all these?” Niall asks, unpacking the carrier bag in the kitchen.

“I didn’t know what I was walking into, Niall. I just wanted to be prepared.”

“All right, fair. But the film about the sinking ship is maybe a bit over the top,” says Niall. He shoots Harry a battered smile.

Harry pulls him into a tight hug. “I love you, Niall.”

“You too, Hazza.” He buries his face in the side of Harry’s neck, and he isn’t crying yet, but he can feel it prickling behind his eyes.

Harry strokes his back in soothing circles. “I reckon this is about Louis if it isn’t about your knee.”

“Then you’ve got the gist. I was a stupid, naïve twat and I got my heart broken. Proper fucking broken.” He holds his breath for the “I told you so”, but Harry just clucks and keeps patting him. “Fuck, I don’t know what to do.”

“Right now you need to eat ice cream,” Harry tells him. “What flavour shall we start with?”

Leave it to Harry to turn the whole thing into a romcom. “Chocolate,” says Niall. “Always start with chocolate.”

Harry gets Niall settled on the sofa with a blanket and brings in the chocolate ice cream and a pair of spoons. “I’m sorry,” he says, settling his free arm around Niall’s shoulders, balancing the ice cream tub on his knee. “I’m so sorry, babe. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

Niall nods. “Dunno, nothing I couldn’t have seen a mile off. I put my foot in my mouth, but even if I hadn’t, I don’t know what I thought would happen besides me getting my heart broken. Reckon I just thought it could be business, until it stopped being business at all.” He takes a bite of ice cream, lets it melt down on his tongue.

Harry kisses the top of his head. “For what it’s worth, what I saw at Stamford Bridge didn’t look like business from his end either. What’d you say that you think was so bad?”

Niall shakes his head. It feels too private to tell Harry how little Louis seems to appreciate himself. It’s not Niall’s to talk about. “Don’t wanna say, but it was bad. He walked out, and I deserved that. I just thought. Fuck. I thought it could be different.”

“And he didn’t think so?”

Niall frowns. “No, I reckon he did too. He said he could come round and I wouldn’t pay him, and we could try it. He said he was already breaking rules for me.”

Harry actually drops his spoon, spattering ice cream on the rug. Niall’s protesting “oi!” is lost in Harry’s loud, “What? Niall, that’s amazing. That’s what you hoped for, isn’t it? That’s, god, that’s everything.”

“Yeah, but then I fucked it. I’ve never fucking done this. I’ve never fucking wanted to be with someone the way I want to be with him. It was all a mistake.”

“It wasn’t though. It wasn’t at all.” Harry’s practically shaking him by the shoulders. “I thought it was just you, like, transferring your feelings onto him, but seeing you with him, it didn’t look like that. And it sounds like it wasn’t.”

Niall blinks back a sudden sheen of oncoming tears. “I just wish that, like, I’d met him some other way. Any other way. I wish he’d been my physio, or my doctor, or a random bloke in the supermarket.”

“You really love him, don’t you?” Harry asks.

“Wish I didn’t,” says Niall. “Reckon I’ll have to ask you to find me another prostitute now.” He doesn’t want that, and it comes out wrong, too blasé. But Harry just hugs him tighter.

“I’ve already brought you cuddles and Kleenex and Kate Winslet’s breasts. That’ll have to do for today.” He coaxes Niall to lay out full length on the sofa, his head in Harry’s lap so Harry can stroke his hair. Niall’s asleep before the ship hits the iceberg.

 

The following week, Harry drives him into London for an appointment with the team’s head of medical, and Niall gets clearance to start coming to training and doing some weights with the lads, although he’ll still be doing all his cardio under Laura’s supervision for a while. “You’ll be back on the pitch before you know it,” Harry tells him, and Niall breaks down in tears right there in the carpark. It’s not a proper go-ahead, not yet, but for the first time the doctor had been saying “when” and not “if”, and that’s all Niall can honestly ask for. He buries his face in his hands and lets Harry rub his shoulders for a minute.

“You all right to go?” Harry asks. 

“Yeah, mate. Cheers.”

“I thought we’d stop at the supermarket on the way back, get some stuff to do up a real celebratory feast. Since you’re barely injured anymore, I’ll even let you do most of the work.”

“Generous offer, that. Haven’t you got places to be though? You didn’t expect to just hang around with me all day, did you?” Niall’s been trying so hard not to act heartbroken, even though when Tuesday rolled around and Louis didn’t come, he’d felt the absence like a fist in his chest.

Harry gives a dissembling little shrug that says he’s probably expected just that. He quizzes Niall about recipes all the way back out of town, asking stupider and stupider questions just to keep Niall talking. It’s a glaringly obvious ploy, since Harry’s actually quite a good cook. Niall humours him anyway.

They stop at the Sainsbury’s near the town centre, and Harry fetches Niall’s crutches from the boot. He won’t need them at all soon enough, but for the time being they serve as a bloody good signal for people not to jostle him when he’s out in public.

Harry gets a trolley he can’t possibly mean to fill, and marches through the doors like a man on a mission. He’s babbling something about leeks when Niall goes stock-still. Louis’s standing by a display of cakes, apparently thinking really intently about raspberry jam versus lemon curd filling. “Can we go?” says Niall, ducking into the freezer aisle and pulling Harry after him. “Just, I’d rather not.”

Harry squeezes Niall’s arm, just below the band of the crutch. “You said you wanted to know what it would be like if you’d just met in the supermarket like normal people,” Harry tells him. “Now’s your chance.”

“You didn’t plan this, did you?” says Niall incredulously. “You’d never do a thing like that to a mate.”

“I’m very devious.” Harry hugs him right there in front of the ready meals. “You deserved a second chance. And he agreed to it, so he can’t hate you that much.”

“But what do I say?”

“Dunno, mate. But you’ll figure it out. Or you can just buy him a cake.”

He doesn’t wait for Niall to agree before he walks off, taking the trolley (and Niall’s primary option for a lift home) with him. Niall ducks his head out to find Louis looking at his phone. He hobbles over, no stealth at all, and says, “Come here often?”

Louis looks up and swallows a smile. “Can’t say. My mum told me not to speak to strangers.”

“Good lesson. Shall I go then?”

Louis cocks his head, doesn’t keep down the smile this time. “Might not be another chance if you do. How often do you meet a bloke as fit as me in the supermarket?”

“Never in my life,” replies Niall. He’s glad he can hold his crutches to keep from reaching out and touching him. “I’m sorry, Lou.”

“None of that now,” Louis says. “We’re strangers again, remember?”

Niall shakes his head against the pretense. “I don’t want us to be strangers though. That’s what I don’t want.”

“I know. Me too.” Louis fidgets with his phone, looks at his hands. “Do you want to get some food? And then maybe we could go back to yours, sort some lunch, see if we can sort ourselves too.”

It’s all Niall could ask for, honestly. He doesn’t even think about what’s going into Louis’s basket, watches Louis instead of the food and wonders what will happen next.

“So you saw the doctor, Harry said,” Louis begins, breaking the silence on the brief ride back to Niall’s house. “Reckon it went all right?”

Niall grins. “Bloody brilliant. I get to start training again. Not out on the pitch yet, but still. No more sitting on my arse in the house. I’ll be back with the lads, like a part of the team again.”

“Don’t think you were ever off the team, mate,” Louis points out.

Niall shrugs. He’s been so far away, and he can feel every bit of how he’s changed in that time when he looks at Louis. “It’ll be brilliant to get back anyway. Or get on the way to being back”

“Said you’d get me tickets to your matches,” Louis says, pulling the car up in front of Niall’s door. “I’m holding you to that, you know.”

“I said if you were my mate. Are you my mate, Lou?”

Louis ducks his head and slips out of the car without answering. It doesn’t exactly bode well for the conversation to come, but Louis puts on the kettle as soon as they’re inside and takes a seat at the table looking determined. 

Niall sits down next to him. “I meant it when I said I was sorry. I said something really shit to you, and I can’t take it back, but I am sorry.”

Louis shrugs. “Can’t say you were wrong though.” The kettle comes to a sputtering boil and clicks off. “Brew?”

“’Course.” He watches Louis with the tea. No one except Harry’s ever had reason to learn his kitchen, but now Louis has. Louis fills the teapot and fetches the mugs and milk and spoons, looking perfectly at home, even now. “I like you in my kitchen,” Niall tells him as he sits back down.

“I like being in your kitchen,” Louis replies. He makes a helpless gesture with his hands. “I want to spend more time in your kitchen.”

“Good.”

“I still fuck footballers for money though. If we’re naming rooms I’d like to spend more time in, your bedroom’s top of the list. But.”

Niall takes a deep breath. “I think I could be all right with that.” He’s not sure, even after two weeks of replaying their last conversation in his head, but he knows he would try.

“What if I’m not all right with it though?” Louis says sharply. “I’ve never tried to, like, have a proper relationship, but I’m confident I’d be spectacularly shit at it. You deserve better.”

Niall shakes his head. “There’s no one better, Lou. There’s no one better in the whole world for me than you.”

“Then you’re in a shedload of trouble, love. I’m a fucking trainwreck.” Louis fidgets, bouncing his knee, and Niall can see how deeply he believes that about himself, how he can’t even make a joke of it without his voice going tight.

“Mate, I pay men to have sex with me because I’m too much of a coward to tell anyone I’m gay. Don’t try to tell me about trainwrecks.” It’s like peeling off his skin to say it that way, reduce it down to sad facts. But however much he says he just wants to keep other people from getting hurt, the truth is he’d rather hide than risk getting hurt himself. “Reckon I’d be no good for you, but I’d still try. It doesn’t change how I feel.”

“Me too,” says Louis. “Doesn’t change it one bit.”

Niall thinks about equivocating, but if this is his only chance to say it, he needs to be clear. “I love you.”

Louis scrub his hands through his shaggy hair, covers his face with them. “I wish you didn’t.”

“Do you?”

“I’ve got no fucking clue how to do this, Niall. Not a single fucking idea. It’s all going to go to shit, and I’m going to hurt you, and you’re going to realise what a great fucking mess you’ve got yourself into. Love isn’t going to stop that.” He pours himself a cup of tea like he’s angry with it. “But I’d try it anyway. I fucking would.”

It’s all Niall needs. He holds out his hands for Louis to take, and if they’re making a terrible mistake, they’re going to make it together. “Kiss me,” he says. And Louis drapes himself over Niall’s lap to do just that.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me on tumblr [here](http://realmenwearpuppypants.tumblr.com/).


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